


Not A Word

by Anonymous_Introvert78



Series: Seventeen Hurt/Comfort [4]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Blackmail, Here we go, Homophobia, Hospitals, Hurt Yoon Jeonghan, IT REALLY ISN'T GRAPHIC, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, LET'S GET IT, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Original Male Character(s) - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Dongsaengs, Self-Sacrifice, Sexual Abuse, Yoon Jeonghan-centric, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:09:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 36,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22145428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Introvert78/pseuds/Anonymous_Introvert78
Summary: ~~~~~~~~~~"Remember, Angel … Not a word."~~~~~~~~~~
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Yoon Jeonghan, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan, Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Yoon Jeonghan, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Yoon Jeonghan, Kim Mingyu/Yoon Jeonghan, Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Yoon Jeonghan, Lee Chan | Dino/Yoon Jeonghan, Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Yoon Jeonghan, Lee Seokmin | DK/Yoon Jeonghan, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Yoon Jeonghan, Xu Ming Hao | The8/Yoon Jeonghan
Series: Seventeen Hurt/Comfort [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1225595
Comments: 446
Kudos: 970





	1. Yoon Jeonghan

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BAAACK!!!

I'm writing a thirteen-part series! One story for each member.

I spent a long time debating whether I wanted to use this story but in the end, I decided I would. I'm just tweaking a few of the ending chapters so I'll start posting within the next few days.

**TRIGGER WARNING!!!!**

This fic contains potentially triggering content such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, blackmail and implied homophobia. None of the depictions are explicit or detailed in the slightest but this entire story does revolve around some very adult themes so please - please - consider carefully whether or not you want to continue reading.

By clicking on the next chapter, you are acknowledging that I have provided the appropriate warnings and therefore I am not responsible for any distress this story may bring you. Please do not come after me in the comments by saying you were triggered because 1) that messes with my head and 2) it's not my fault. Please be safe. Thank you.

**There will be no major character death in this series.**


	2. 제 1 장

“Hey, hyung? How many people do you think I have to ask to punch me before somebody will actually do it?”

A normal person with normal friends would regard such a question as weird, insane or just plain stupid, but even if Jeonghan could pass for a normal person, he would definitely never pass for a person with normal friends.

Today was just another example. 

“I don’t know, Hansol,” he countered, frowning in mock interest as he leaned back against the dance studio mirror and chewed thoughtfully on his protein bar. “Why don’t you conduct a test?”

A normal person would have left it at that. 

Hansol was not a normal person. 

Hansol conducted a test.

His face split in an affectionate smile, Jeonghan watched Hansol clamber up off the floor and intercept Jun as the older boy made his way across the dance floor towards the trash can with an empty wrapper in his hand. 

“Hyung, punch me.”

Jun’s face crumpled in bewilderment as he retreated a step or two, regarding his younger brother with something comically similar to concern etched into his features before he half laughed out his answer. 

“What the fuck? No.”

Hansol sighed in defeat and turned back to Jeonghan who held up one finger to begin their tally, still nibbling on his calorific snack to regain the energy that had been sapped from him over the course of the last four hours’ intensive dance session.

“Joshua-hyung, punch me!”

There was a short pause where Joshua stared up at the bundle of energy that came bouncing over to him before he raised his eyebrows sceptically and uttered, with a painfully condescending tone, “Are you okay?”

Jeonghan put up another finger, wiggling them at Hansol in a mock little wave, but it only seemed to fuel his friend’s determination to have a row of knuckles sinking into his teeth. 

At this point, he didn’t even question what Hansol’s motives were to begin with.

“Hey! Minghao-hyung! Punch me!”

“Okay.”

The laughter burst from every mouth, hands slapping together, people rolling around on the floor – namely Hansol who had just received Minghao’s fist in his chest – and Jeonghan noted this moment as one of the best he’d ever experienced.

He had a list of best moments. And almost all of them included the people he had with him in this room at this exact time. 

The people he loved with all his heart and all his soul and all his other organs and spiritual features. He just loved them. 

Two months later, he almost died in order to protect them.

“Hey, Jeonghan?”

He glanced up from his place on the floor, still chuckling in the face of Hansol’s pain, to see Kwangho beckoning him over to the door. The assistant manager also had his mouth stretched in an exasperated smile.

“He’s an idiot, isn’t he?” he muttered over the sound of Hansol’s overly dramatic screaming, and Jeonghan nodded emphatically.

“But that’s one of the many reasons why we love him.” 

He folded his arms over his chest and turned back to the older man, eyebrows raised expectantly as he awaited the reason behind his unscheduled summoning. 

“Did you want me for something?”

“What? Oh … right,” Kwangho stuttered, as though he’d forgotten that he called Jeonghan over in the first place, and as he reached up to nervously rub the back of his neck, the younger boy could have sworn that his cheeks were slightly flushed.

They all called him ‘hyung’ and treated him like a superior but Kwangho was really only a couple of years older than Seungcheol. 

He was almost the same age as them and, as Soonyoung kept insisting, probably a little bit on the homosexual side. Which was fine, but it did cause a couple of awkward moments, such as this one.

“I have a few songs,” the manager forced out at last as Jeonghan continued to wait patiently. “And I was just wondering if you would come listen to some of them … you know … just to tell me if you like them or how you think they could be improved.” 

Jeonghan almost felt like laughing. 

Kwangho was just so … He couldn’t call him cute. The man was too large, too muscular, too commanding when it came to waking them up in the morning, to be even considered as cute. 

But that’s exactly what he was.

“Sure,” he chirped cheerfully, trying to reassure the man by squeezing his shoulder but it only seemed to make him more flustered. “When do you want me?”

A sheepish smile stretched across Kwangho’s face and Jeonghan very nearly commented on just how similar he looked to a teenage high school girl with a crush before he managed to restrain himself.

“Just … after practise would be fine.”

“Okay. In the main studio, right?”

“Oh,” Kwangho faltered, his grin dimming ever so slightly as the nervousness returned full-fledge. “I was thinking maybe we could use the smaller one. It’s a little more … private in there.”

Well, that was a little odd. And not quite as cute anymore. 

They were just playing a few songs. There was no need to be private, but if that’s what made Kwangho more comfortable – was that the right word? – then that was just what they would do.

“Sure, hyung,” he agreed. “I’ll meet you over there once we’re done here.”

He returned to the circle the others had made as they readied themselves for a ruthless game of ‘Mafia’, hating himself for how conflicted he felt. 

He had no problem with Kwangho’s sexuality. Absolutely none. He could be whoever he wanted to be as long as he was happy.

But he couldn’t ignore the worry that was gnawing away in his gut. He couldn’t ignore the feeling that something wasn’t quite … right. 

Maybe there was some tiny sliver of homophobia inside of him; from his parents or from his high school gym teacher’s hatred for same-sex couples. 

He loathed the idea of it but it was definitely a possibility, particularly when looking at the strictly conservative family in which he'd been raised. 

That was it. That was all it was. There was nothing sinister about any of this. He was being paranoid. And a bit of an asshole. 

He was just … He was just being paranoid. 


	3. 제 2 장

“What do you think?”

“It’s … It’s good,” Jeonghan replied, nodding his head in approval as he removed his headphones and set them on the desk in front of him. “It’s really good, hyung. Have you submitted these to the management company?”

“You think they’re worthy of that?” Kwangho shot back, surprise and pride evident in his tone, and Jeonghan took great pleasure in giving him a reassuring nod. “There’s not something you think could be better?”

He frowned, scanning the score on the computer screen.

“Jihoon’s really the best at this, hyung. He’d be much more useful to you than I am.”

“I disagree,” Kwangho countered instantly. “You’re by far the best singer, and I know you’ve helped out with lyrics before. That’s why I came to you. Your opinion is invaluable, Jeonghan.”

“Thanks …”

This was strange. Jeonghan was flattered – most definitely – but it was still strange.

Sure, he was one of the lead vocalists but Seungkwan and Seokmin had taken that crown a long, long time ago.

It was common knowledge that their voices were so much stronger, and he was reserved for the falsetto parts. Kwangho was … It was … just strange.

It was almost uncomfortable.

“Do you want to hear another one?”

“Sure.”

He reached for the earphones, slapping them onto his head and shifting one side slightly to the left so that an ear was uncovered, and he waited for Kwangho to press PLAY and for the music to start.

But it didn’t.

He glanced up expectantly and had to resist the urge to draw back as he saw the way Kwangho was looking at him. It was as though he were in a daze, starstruck by a celebrity he had known for at least three weeks now. 

It was a look Jeonghan had seen a thousand times before, but it was usually reserved for the faces of his fans.

“You know that you’re really beautiful, right?”

And that was it. That was the final straw.

He didn’t want to be in a situation like this and maybe that made him a bad person and maybe that made him homophobic but all he knew was that he was not comfortable and he wanted to get out.

Now.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out as he leapt up from his chair and grabbed his jacket, stuffing his arms into the sleeves before realising it was inside out. “But it’s really late, hyung, and I promised Joshua I’d play video games with him tonight and I …”

“No, no, no, wait!” Kwangho cried out and his hand came from nowhere, sausage-like fingers fastening around Jeonghan’s wrist and pulling him back towards the computer. “I’m sorry. That was … I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry, Jeonghan. It won’t happen again. Please … Please just listen to the song.”

The boy would have been lying if he said his heart wasn’t beating abnormally fast or his blood wasn’t rushing in his ears, but he couldn’t deny the fact that Kwangho truly did look apologetic.

And people made mistakes, right? People got caught up in their own little moments and they … told people they were beautiful?

Yeah. It was plausible. It was normal. It was fine. And Jeonghan was not homophobic. He wasn’t.

But if he ran out right now like the coward he was pretending to be, that was exactly what he would look like.

“Okay,” he concluded, still a little breathless. “Okay, play it for me.”

Lowering himself into the chair, he returned the headphones to his ears and tried to hide the slight shuffle he gave his seat so that he could be just a little bit further from Kwangho and his spontaneous confessions of affection.

The music started with a slow tempo and a blithe melody that gradually built in momentum until the beat dropped and the lyrics kicked in, a demo voice rapping about someone with a gorgeous body and blonde hair and porcelain skin … and Jeonghan made the connection far too late. 

The first hand appeared on his thigh, the second cupped the back of his neck and he turned his face instinctively, right into the kiss Kwangho smashed against his lips.

It was sloppy. Messy. Their teeth clashed and he could have sworn the rookie manager was biting down on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood. 

Jeonghan’s survival instincts kicked in, heart going into overdrive and panic alarms blaring in his ears as he brought both hands up to push the larger body away from him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled, scrambling out of his chair with his chest heaving and his legs trembling with residual adrenaline and fear.

It was just Kwangho, he reminded himself. Kwangho would never hurt him. Not on purpose. Never on purpose. But that had been wrong.

That had been scary and horrible and most definitely not consensual. And it was … wrong.

“I … I’m not …” he gasped, stumbling towards the door with his hand pressed against his chest in the hope that it would calm his racing heart. “I … I’m not gay, hyung. I’m sorry but … I’m … I’m just not …”

“I’m sorry!” Kwangho called, rising from his seat and advancing on the boy who was already on the verge of sprinting right out the door. “I’m sorry! I don’t … I’m not usually like this … I swear, Jeonghan, I don’t know why I just did that, but it’s just … it’s just y … you’re just so … beautiful.”

“I’m going,” Jeonghan announced, blatantly ignoring yet another cry of his name as he slammed his body into the door and ran for his life.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want it. Kwangho hadn’t even asked him if he wanted it. Kwangho had just … It wasn’t right. He didn’t … He couldn’t … Not right … Didn’t … Was he being followed? Was Kwangho coming for him? Was he going to kiss him again? Force himself on him? Make him do things he didn’t want to do without asking for his consent?

Stop.

He had to stop. He was overreacting. It had just been a mistake. Two mistakes. In a row. After he had already expressed his distaste.

But it was fine. Because it was just a mistake. He wasn’t in danger. Kwangho wasn’t going to track him down, pin him to the floor and …

Breathe.

Jeonghan drew to a stop in the hallway, bending at the waist and bracing his hands on his knees as he tried to inhale as deeply as he could while his mind was still on panic mode.

His chest was burning, he could feel his own pulse beating against the skin of his wrist, and there were beads of sweat forming across his hairline.

He had been truly terrified by a man he’d known for weeks now. 

“Hyung?”

His head snapped up, body still on the highest alert, but his shoulders sagged with relief when all he saw was Minghao hovering nervously in front of him, brow creased in concern and eyes wide with worry.

“Are you … Are you alright?”

Jeonghan didn’t trust himself to speak. His throat had closed up and his lungs were only just starting to taste fresh air again.

But even if he could utter the words Minghao craved, could he really share what had just happened?

It was embarrassing. And he was embarrassed to admit that it was embarrassing.

Somebody else violating his body like that wasn’t something he wanted Minghao to know about.

The kid might think he was overreacting, he was pathetic or he had been sending mixed signals with his willingness to accompany Kwangho into the “private” studio.

He couldn’t tell him. He just couldn’t.

“It’s nothing,” he whispered, but he knew his face was still paper white and his knees were still trembling and he was still clinging to the wall as if he couldn’t stand without its support. “Can you … Can you drive me home?”

“Okay,” Minghao conceded, but from his expression, the older boy knew that he was going to have to talk about this tomorrow.

But that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that Minghao was taking him away from this building. From that room. From that song.

And most importantly, from Kwangho. 


	4. 제 3 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY! I wake up one day and PLEDIS and BigHit might be merging and Jongdae not only has a fiancé but she's pregnant??? I'm absolutely stunned but all I can really think about is Jungkook and Mingyu getting to be 97-liners in the same building and Jongdae being the best father a child could ask for so … I'm so frazzled. 
> 
> And I've just realised, these chapters are so short. I'm so sorry, guys.

Today was another day. Everything that had happened in the studio would be forgotten as far as Jeonghan was concerned. He would dance, he would sing, he would be who he had always been, and if Kwangho wanted to talk about … that, then all he would say was, ‘it’s forgotten’.

“Hey, Han?”

He glanced up from his phone in the back of the company vehicle, popping out one of his earphones so he could listen to what Seungcheol was trying to say to him with a face so serious that Jeonghan almost wanted to laugh at him.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Minghao told me that he found you last night,” Seungcheol murmured, leaning a little closer so that Chan wouldn’t hear from his other side. “And that you were kind of messed up.”

Oh. _Oh._

Really, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Minghao had a heart of gold. Of course, he would be worried for his hyung. Of course, he wouldn’t know how to handle it himself and of course, he would turn to Seungcheol as a result.

But today was another day. And anything that had happened in the past didn’t need to be discussed further.

“I’m fine, Cheol.”

“Are you sure?” Seungcheol pushed. “Because you know that you can always come and talk to …”

“Cheol,” Jeonghan cut him off mid-sentence, holding up a restraining hand. “Believe me, if something was really wrong, I would tell you. But it’s nothing, so can we just move on?”

Seungcheol still didn’t look sure, even as he surrendered with a nod of his head, but it was enough to satisfy Jeonghan’s building anxiety. He wouldn’t – he couldn’t – talk about yesterday. Today was just another day.

But they were barely an hour into practise when the door creaked open and a nervous voice called across the room, “Jeonghan?”

And Jeonghan literally felt his heartrate spiking, palms sweating, shoulders heaving with a deliberately deep breath as he very slowly turned around to see Kwangho loitering in the corner, giving him a look that said clear as day, ‘I’m just as uncomfortable with this as you are.’

“Can I borrow you for just a minute?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. Today was another day. He wanted to forget. This wouldn’t let him forget. This would only help him remember. Make him remember. He didn’t want to remember.

“Um … Can it wait, hyung?” he called back, glancing over at Soonyoung and trying to convey his desperation to a boy who had no idea what he wanted to say. “I’m kind of in the middle of practise.”

“It’ll only take a moment. You can manage without him for a couple of minutes, right, Soonyoung?”

“Of course. He’s not nearly as important as he thinks he is,” Soonyoung laughed, clapping Jeonghan on the back and remaining completely oblivious to the dread dawning on his hyung’s face. 

Because now he had no choice.

The moment he stepped through the door, Kwangho was closing it behind him, securing a barrier between them and the rest of the members. It was unnerving. And it only got worse when the trainee manager leant forwards so that their faces were only inches apart.

“I’m really sorry about yesterday, Jeonghan,” he said, eyes wide and imploring. “I shouldn’t have moved in on you like that when you weren’t ready. Can we … Can we just start again?”

Jeonghan nodded quickly, anything to get him back in that room with the brothers he knew could protect him, even from someone as friendly and harmless as Kwangho.

“It’s forgotten, hyung,” he whispered, unable to make his voice any louder through the clot in his throat. “I’m not going to mention it to anyone and we’ll just … pretend it never happened, okay?”

“Pretend it never happened?” Kwangho repeated, brow furrowing in confusion. “Why would we do that?”

Jeonghan swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing comically against his windpipe but the clogged piece of phlegm still refused to remove itself from his gullet. And he still felt like he was about to suffocate.

“Because it made me uncomfortable, hyung,” he pointed out, nervously trying to edge away from the figure looming above him. “I don’t … I’m okay with you being gay. Trust me, I’m absolutely okay with it. But I’m not … That’s just not for me, and I’m really flattered that you … thought that I would …”

He felt like his heart stopped the second that Kwangho’s fingers closed around his upper arm, squeezing and squeezing, tighter and tighter until it hurt.

It hurt. And he was scared. And he wanted to be released right now, but his body wouldn’t move to pull away.

“Hyung …” he stuttered. “Let go of me.”

“I really like you,” Kwangho pushed, shuffling closer and closer until Jeonghan was forced to press his back right up against the wall, arm still clenched in a vice-like grip. “And I know that if you just give me a little bit of time, I can make you like me, too.”

No. No. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t okay. He didn’t like it. He really didn’t like it.

“I’m not gay!” he cried, and there was a slight hitch to his voice as his eyes started to swim.

“Oh, come on,” Kwangho cooed back, reaching up with his free hand to swat at the first tear gliding gracefully down Jeonghan’s cheek. “We’re all a little gay. Let me just show you what I can do for you, Hannie. I can make you so …”

“No!”

It was the hand that did it. The hand on the waistband of his jeans that had Jeonghan’s strength returning to him and he shoved at the body caging him against the wall, ignoring the yelp of shock that filtered from Kwangho’s mouth.

“Jeongh –”

But Jeonghan was already staggering back into the practise room, fully aware that his upper arm was going to be printed with finger-shaped bruises the next morning, but too flustered and frightened to care.

What had just happened was sexual harassment, right? It was a fireable offence. He had to report it. But would anyone believe him? Would anyone care? It was two guys. Two guys was still an untouchable issue in this country. No one would do anything. Nothing at all.

He couldn’t tell. Anyone.

Jeonghan filtered himself flawlessly back into the routine, forcing his body to push through each and every movement even as Kwangho stepped back into the room with his jaw set in a clenched mask of anger and his brow furrowed in fury.

He had to keep telling himself that nothing would happen so long as the others were here. Kwangho wouldn’t dare try a single dirty deed if there were possible witnesses to back up a harassment report. He had no power over him.

But then Kwangho did the one thing that gave him all that power. Every last ounce of it.

Seungkwan dropped out of the formation without warning, jogging over to the pyramid of water bottles by the mirror and swiping the one on top. He unscrewed the cap and knocked his head back to allow the cool, refreshing liquid to trickle into his mouth, and that was when Kwangho made his move.

Jeonghan watched, still dancing, horror dawning, as the manager slipped an arm around Seungkwan’s waist and leaned close to whisper something in the younger boy’s ear. It couldn’t have been anything sinister or threatening because Seungkwan laughed so hard that he squirted water from his nose.

And Kwangho raised his gaze to look right at Jeonghan, giving him a crystal clear message that had his victim’s blood turning to ice in his veins: _You have no idea what I could do to him._

If Jeonghan was anything, first and foremost, he was a hyung. A big brother. A protector. Even before they debuted, he had made himself a promise to forever put his brothers’ safety before his own. To never let anything happen to them. Anybody touch them. Anybody hurt them.

And Kwangho was touching Seungkwan. Kwangho was threatening to hurt Seungkwan. And he knew that was all he needed to do to get Jeonghan under his thumb.

Seventeen’s second eldest member condemned himself the moment that he bolted across the dance studio, grabbed Kwangho by the wrist and pulled him as far away from Seungkwan as he could manage in just one movement.

For a second, the two of them stared at each other. Challenging each other. Cursing each other.

But that all stopped when Jeonghan kissed him.


	5. 제 4 장

“Jeonghan!”

No. Keep walking. Just keep walking. Make him understand that you don’t want to talk right now.

“Han, hold up a sec!”

You can’t talk about it. You can’t tell him why that just happened. You can’t tell anyone. You would be ruined. You probably already are.

“Jeonghan, wait!”

You had no choice. You were protecting Seungkwan. He was going to hurt Seungkwan. But no one will understand. You can’t tell them. They won’t understand. No one will ever understand.

“Han!”

Fingers closed around Jeonghan’s wrist, stopping him in his tracks as Seungcheol finally caught up and whipped him around so they were facing each other. So he could see the tears streaming down his younger brother’s face.

“Han …” Seungcheol repeated, softer this time, gentler. “What the hell, Han? What was that?”

Jeonghan stared at the floor, wriggling his wrist free of his leader’s grip and folding his arms over his chest. He had to close himself up. He had to protect himself as best as he could right now, because he had never been more vulnerable.

He could still taste Kwangho’s lips suckering against his.

“Han, come here.”

Seungcheol slipped an arm around his shoulders and steered him into the recording booth on their left. He was trying to give them some privacy so Jeonghan could feel more comfortable, but the action had the completely opposite effect.

It was the same studio in which Kwangho had first come onto him, and his skin was prickling so incessantly that he wished more than anything he could peel it right off his bones. 

“Han,” Seungcheol said yet again, hands carefully rubbing the top of Jeonghan’s arms as he bent his knees slightly in an attempt to get his friend to look at him. “Talk to me. Why did you do that?”

There was no answer Jeonghan could give. He wasn’t sure he would be able to speak even if he knew what to say. His body was shutting down, shrinking in on itself in order to hide, and all it was capable of doing was crying like a baby.

“Jeonghan …”

There it was again. His name. Those two syllables sounded so filthy on Seungcheol’s tongue. The things he had done, the things he would do, the things he had subjected himself to … He wasn’t even worthy of a name.

“I’m only going to ask you this once, and you don’t even have to say anything. Just nod or shake your head, can you do that?”

Jeonghan looked up sharply, eyes widening in his throbbing skull. Did Seungcheol know that he hadn’t wanted to kiss Kwangho in front of their entire group? Was Seungcheol about to ask him to confirm his suspicions: that he’d been forced? Was Seungcheol about to put an end to this nightmare before it could rip him apart any further?

“Are you gay?”

No. No. No. No. No. That wasn’t the right question. That wasn’t the question that would save Jeonghan from the horrors he had doomed himself to endure. In this moment, he had needed Seungcheol to understand more than he’d ever needed anything in his life, and his leader had failed him.

“Han?”

Jeonghan’s knees gave out, liquifying into jellified joints and he sank onto the floor with a poorly-suppressed cry of anguish. He buried his face in his hands, feeling snot and salt stain his fingers, but too mortified to care even when Seungcheol sat down at his side and tried to get him to move his palms so he could clean his face.

“It’s okay, Han,” he was saying. “It’s okay. This isn’t going to change anything, alright? We still love you and there’s absolutely no reason that you need to be ashamed.”

No. No. No. No. No! It was all wrong. Everything was so wrong. He wasn’t gay. He’d never been gay and he never would be gay, but that wasn’t what was bothering him. Not in the slightest.

He thought Seungcheol knew him. He thought Seungcheol would be able to tell from just one glance that things were not as they seemed, but apparently he’d been misinformed. And now his best friend thought he was sobbing his heart out on this floor because he was gay.

He couldn’t contradict him because then he would have to explain what was really happening, and he just couldn’t do that. It was too humiliating and shameful and … He couldn’t. Seungcheol would never look at him the same way again.

It was better like this. It was better to let them believe he was gay. Even if it lost him his job, it would save him the embarrassment of having to admit that he’d let his own manager blackmail him into snogging his face off.

“I love you, Han,” Seungcheol was still whispering as his fingers gently combed Jeonghan’s sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. “I’m really proud of you for being able to tell me, and I’m so glad that you’ve got Kwangho-hyung to help you through this.”

Jeonghan couldn’t stop crying. The tears just wouldn’t dry up and he could tell he was starting to hyperventilate, but his mind seemed determined to destroy his body. Destroy it before someone else could.

Destroy it before Kwangho could.

Because Kwangho would.

Jeonghan had just given him permission to. 

“I need to go home,” he whispered, words still muffled by his fingers pressing against his lips in an attempt to silence his own sobs. “I need to go home right now.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol soothed, procuring a tissue from nowhere and carefully wiping the fluids from his friend’s face. “I’ll call a company vehicle and we’ll go together.”

“No!” Jeonghan snapped, but there was no poison behind his tone. Just devastation that only increased when he saw the pained look of confusion on his leader’s face. “I need … I need to be alone.”

He needed to shower. Thoroughly. And wash out his mouth. And brush his teeth. Anything to get the taste of Kwangho off his tongue, and the very last thing he wanted to do was talk about his recently exposed homosexuality. The very last thing.

“I understand,” Seungcheol said as he fastened his fingers around Jeonghan’s elbows and helped him to his feet. “But are you sure you’re going to be okay? You’re not going to … freak out or hurt yourself or something?”

Jeonghan couldn’t suppress the snort of mirth he expelled from his throat at the mere suggestion. If only Kwangho would go away with a few chunks carved out of his wrists, but that would only add to his increasing list of problems.

So he shook his head. No matter how badly he may want to, he wasn’t going to hurt himself.

But he did cry. He cried a lot.

The second the front door closed behind him, he stumbled up the stairs and burst into the bathroom, already stripping off his clothes so he could throw himself beneath the shower’s powerful storm as soon as humanly possible.

He could still feel those eyes on him. The eyes of his leader and his dongsaengs as his lips locked with their assistant manager right in the middle of a dance rehearsal.

Kwangho had slid his tongue inside his mouth, uninvited, unwanted. He’d felt it exploring the ridges of his teeth, and had needed to force himself not to bite down as hard as he could. He’d wanted to throw up right there, on that disgusting man’s equally disgusting shoes, but his body wouldn’t obey.

And the worst thing of all was that he could still remember the way Kwangho looked at him after he’d done it. Like he was silently impressed. Like he didn’t believe the boy had it in him.

Jeonghan slid down the shower wall to rest in a sodden ball on the porcelain floor, winding his arms around his knees and burying his face in the crook of his elbow.

He needed to be small. He needed to hide. He needed to disappear from the memories of that tongue and those eyes and the hands that had grabbed his hips like their fingers wanted to devour him piece by piece.

There was no one home. It was just him. Him and the image of Kwangho scalded into the backs of his eyelids. No matter how loudly he cried, his sobs being drowned by the intensity with which the water came crashing down on top of him, that face wouldn’t go away. It would never go away.

And it was only just beginning.


	6. 제 5 장

“Cheol told me.”

It was barely a whisper, Joshua didn’t even raise his head from his ramen cup, but Jeonghan knew immediately what he meant and he felt like his blood turned to ice as his chopsticks froze halfway to his mouth.

Seungcheol had betrayed him. Seungcheol had betrayed his trust, and it seemed to be a recurring theme in Jeonghan’s life at that moment. 

First, he was assaulted by the person he used to call “hyung” and now his best friend was spilling his darkest – and untrue – secrets whenever he felt like it.

“Han, why would you keep something like that from us?”

He didn’t understand, Jeonghan told himself as he poked gingerly at his soggy noodles, appetite completely diminished. He couldn’t get angry at Joshua because he’d done nothing wrong. 

He was only trying to be a good friend with the information that he had.

“Did you think we were going to judge you?”

“Please, stop,” Jeonghan whispered, lowering his head slightly so that his fringe fell in front of his eyes, obscuring potential tears. “I love you, Shua, but please stop.”

There were a few seconds of pained silence before Joshua’s fingers closed around his friend’s hand for a brief squeeze of comfort before he let go and moved away to join the others’ conversation on the opposite side of the room.

And Jeonghan felt empty without him there.

Soonyoung was laughing, smacking his hands together as he rolled about on the floor, and Seokmin was clutching Wonwoo as he shook with silent mirth.

It shouldn’t bother Jeonghan to see them so happy, but for some reason, their euphoria bit into his vulnerability and started chewing and chewing and chewing until he was on the verge of a breakdown. He couldn’t afford yet another one of those.

He dropped the half-eaten ramen cup down on the table and pushed off the sofa, making a beeline straight for the door and praying to a God he no longer believed in that the others would just let him go without questioning his motives.

But alas, “Hyung, where are you going?”

“Bathroom,” Jeonghan threw over his shoulder, wincing when his voice came out harsh and cruel, but he was out in the corridor before anyone could confront him for it.

Fearful that someone – Joshua or Seungcheol – would come looking for him, he started his wobbly stumble towards the bathroom even though he had no desire to use it. He just needed to move before his legs gave out and he crumpled into a ball of useless flesh and salted tears.

It was nearly the end of the day, and so far, he’d managed to avoid Kwangho completely. They’d been so busy that it was almost enough to make him forget the way he shivered every time he laid eyes on that man. Almost.

And Seungcheol wouldn’t stop looking at him like he was made of glass. Like he needed to be handled with the greatest of care or else he would shatter into a thousand broken fragments. And now Joshua would do it, too.

Who knows how many more people they would tell?

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you all day.”

Never before had such a simple sentence made him feel so cold, but Kwangho’s voice had a way of piercing his skin and solidifying his muscles into icebergs so that he couldn’t move and he couldn’t escape.

There was an arm around his waist, fingers curling into his side, and he felt goosebumps explode up and down his arms as the hairs on the back of his neck immediately stood to attention.

He should have known he wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever.

“You really impressed me yesterday, you know? I had no idea you had that much spunk.”

Jeonghan didn’t look at him. He wouldn’t give this bastard the satisfaction of seeing his fear. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the bathroom door in front of him. 

Just a few more seconds and he would have made it inside, where he could lock himself in a stall and be safe.

“If all I had to do to get you to kiss me like that was get a bit cuddly with Seungkwan then I would have thrown myself on him weeks ago.”

Jeonghan was shaking. He closed his eyes and a tear rolled down his cheek but he couldn’t reach up to wipe it away without revealing its presence. 

All he knew was that in this moment, he was both terrified and furious at the same time.

“If you touch him …” he hissed, but his voice was trembling as badly as his knees, and the intimidation he’d wanted to lace his words with was ruined. “If you ever … _ever_ … lay a finger on him or any of them, I will tell everybody what you’re doing.”

He kept his eyes closed, screwed them tighter, as he felt Kwangho lean so close that hot breath brushed the side of his neck.

“And what am I doing, Angel?”

That nickname. The nickname his fans gave him. The nickname his members used. The nickname that made him feel special and loved and never failed to make him smile whenever he heard it, was being poisoned on this man’s tongue.

“You were the one who kissed me in front of your entire group, completely of your own volition. As far as they’re concerned, I didn’t force you to do anything.”

What had happened to that shy, insecure little man who had shuffled into their studio and bowed almost ninety degrees all those weeks ago? Where was he hiding and how could Jeonghan get him back?

“You won’t talk, will you, Angel? You won’t say a word.”

He was right. Jeonghan knew he was right and _he_ knew he was right and that was what made this a billion times worse. 

Kwangho was threatening him and there was nothing he could do about it without being subjected to interviews and interrogations and a shitload of judgement he didn’t deserve.

“I’ve got some gopchang in the studio. Why don’t you come and eat with me?”

Somehow, Jeonghan didn’t believe it was gopchang that was on the menu here.

“I already ate,” he whispered, eyes still closed, hands clenched into fists at his side as Kwangho tightened his grip. “I’m not hungry.”

“Sure you are,” came the coo in his ear, so close that he could actually feel his tormentor’s breath tickling his eardrum. “I know how much you love your food.”

Jeonghan wanted to resist. He wanted to fight and kick and scream and sprint back into the room he’d just left and throw himself into Seungcheol’s arms and beg his leader not to let Kwangho take him, but he couldn’t.

He was paralysed by those talons, frozen by that voice, completely at the mercy of the body that steered him down the corridor and into that studio. 

That studio. The one where everything began.

A table had been moved to the middle of the room with two chairs on either side. The dishes were laid out perfectly, precisely, and Kwangho had even gone as far as to light a candle in the centre. It was creepy and it was sick and Jeonghan had absolutely no choice other than to sit down.

But instead of rounding the table and taking the other chair, Kwangho pulled it closer so he could seat himself right beside his victim, their shoulders brushing together.

“Tuck in, Angel.”

“Don’t call me that.”

His own words surprised him. He’d thought every ounce of his courage had deserted him long ago, but it seemed that last sliver was still in there, standing up for the person he used to be.

He couldn’t look at Kwangho. He couldn’t see the mildly interested rise in his eyebrows or the amused upturn of his lips. 

The lips Jeonghan had kissed.

“You don’t like it when I call you ‘angel’, Angel?”

Kwangho was messing with him, toying with him like a cat did before the terrified, helpless little mouse was devoured, slowly and painfully. But it was when fingers slid into his hair, gently massaging his scalp, that Jeonghan’s repulsion got the best of him.

“Get off me!” he choked, leaping out of his chair and backing up against the wall with his hands held out in defence. “This isn’t okay. This is … This is harassment. If I report this, you’ll lose your job in a heartbeat.”

Kwangho was gazing up at him, still seated, still calm, watching his prey squirming in fear right in front of him with the full knowledge that he had every ounce of control in this situation.

“No one will believe you,” he whispered, not even changing his facial expression as he regarded Jeonghan with a hint of smugness in his eyes. “I have an excellent reputation. I’m the shy, cute little assistant manager who blushes every time somebody brushes past him. You think anyone’s going to suspect me of … What did you call it? Harassment?”

As he spoke, he rose from his chair and advanced. Slowly, like a predator, waiting to pounce. 

Jeonghan pressed his back against the wall, swallowing the bile that threatened to spew from his mouth and trying to harden his jaw so that he didn’t look as afraid as he felt.

“And think of the shame,” Kwangho continued maliciously. “You’re a full grown man, Jeonghan. You’re a dancer, you work out, you’re strong, and yet you let yourself be … what was it again? Harassed … without even putting up a fight? I don’t see any bruises, Angel. I don’t see any proof that anything happening between us is not utterly consensual.” 

They were nose to nose now, and Jeonghan couldn’t even close his eyes. He was staring at every pore on Kwangho’s cheeks, every blemish on his skin, every dewdrop of sweat beading beneath his hairline, and he was disgusted.

“You won’t say a word.”

He was getting closer. Too close. Too, too close. Jeonghan had to move but Kwangho’s hands were pressed against the wall either side of his head, caging him in, trapping him.

“Not a word.”

Their lips smashed together. It was clumsy and messy and painful, and Jeonghan could feel the foreign tongue poking around inside his mouth and the hands moving from the wall to cup his face.

Nails were digging into his skin. He couldn’t draw breath. His chest was collapsing in on itself. His heart was going to explode right out of his chest. He was having a panic attack and his hands were pushing against Kwangho’s chest but his captor was not letting him go.

“Stmph!” he tried to scream, but his words were muffled by the … he couldn’t even call it a kiss.

And finally, finally, he was released.

He staggered sideways, gasping for air and clawing at his chest as his blood pressure continued to skyrocket even though those hands were no longer on him and that mouth was no longer accosting his. 

He already knew that he would still feel those touches in his sleep.

His knees almost buckled as he dived for the door but fingers closed around his wrist before he could make it and he let out a choked sob as he was restrained, forbidden from escaping.

“Remember, Angel,” Kwangho warned, taking a step towards him and raising a hand to rest against his tear-stained cheek. “Not a word.”

He let go and Jeonghan was out the door in less than a second, clinging to the wall even as he dashed down the corridor with his vision blurred and his shoulders heaving with pure, undiluted panic. 

The bathroom door didn’t stand a chance against him and the force with which he slammed into it.

The mirror was directly opposite the entrance and the second Jeonghan laid eyes on his reflection – reddened, puffy eyes, flushed cheeks, bruised and bitten lips – he knew he was going to vomit.

For as long as he’d lived, he’d always hated the sound of throwing up, but he had to push those fears aside in order to fling himself on his knees in a locked bathroom stall and bend over the toilet before he revisited his earlier consumption of ramen.

He had no idea how long he knelt there, retching and heaving, but even after his body had dried up, he was still trapped in his own swirling vortex of panic and he curled up in the corner of the stall with his arms wrapped around his knees and his face buried in his jeans.

And he cried.


	7. 제 6 장

Hands. Hands on his body. On his hips, on his face, on his wrists. Teeth biting down on his lips, drawing blood. The taste of copper in his mouth. The stench of sweat suffocating him.

He was alone, completely alone, on the floor of the bathroom stall. His face was still buried in his knees, the door was locked, his arms were trapped tightly around himself, and he was safe. 

But somebody must have forgotten to tell his mind.

Kwangho’s fingers had left invisible prints on his skin. Burns. Scalds. Poisoned patches of a body that had never been touched like that before, and no matter how many times he told himself that it was over, that Kwangho wasn’t here, he couldn’t forget what those nails had felt like digging into his cheeks.

_Not a word._

He could hear him, even now, even over the sound of his own gasping sobs.

_Think of the shame._

His face was burning, not just with tears but with humiliation. He had never felt so worthless.

 _Angel_.

He gripped at his hair with both hands, tugging on the bleached strands with his eyes screwed so tightly shut that his head felt like it was going to explode. 

Irons bands were encircling his chest, squashing his ribs as they got tighter and tighter until they were crushing his heart and his lungs and all the vital organs he needed to survive.

“Hyung?”

No. No one could find him like this. No one could see him like this. He was a mess. He was pathetic. And disgusting. 

They couldn’t see that side of him. The side Kwangho had ripped into the open.

“Jeonghan-hyung, is that you?”

He tried to calm down. He tried to take deep breaths, he tried to stop crying, but he couldn’t. 

He was in too deep, drowning in his own tears and snot and spit, and any minute now, he was convinced that his heart was going to stop dead in its tracks.

“Hyung, open the door!”

“No!” he wailed, still clutching his head in his hands as he started to rock back and forth.

He was safe in here where no one could touch him and no one could force him to do those terrible things. 

But the second he obeyed the command and drew that lock back, the world would be free to enter his safe haven and rip him to shreds. 

Again.

Footsteps. The creak of the door. They were leaving. They were gone. They couldn’t hurt him, but he was still crying and shaking and hyperventilating and he just couldn’t stop.

Who would find his body? Would they know what had happened? Would they know it was Kwangho who had pushed him to this point? Would they arrest him? Would they fire him? Or would they turn a blind eye and let him defile whoever else he wanted?

“Han, it’s me.”

No. No. It’s a trick. They’d come back to trick him, to draw him out under false pretences so they could pounce when he least expected it, bloodthirsty talons digging into his flesh. 

The voice on the other side of that door was not Seungcheol.

“Han, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now but I need you to listen to me, okay? Can you do that?”

Joshua. That was Joshua. His best friend. Joshua would never lie to him. No. It wasn’t Joshua. It was Kwangho. It was Kwangho using Joshua’s voice to bait him and torment him and torture him even though he was already in so much pain.

“You’re safe, Han.”

No. It wasn’t true. He was never safe. Not with Kwangho out there, lurking in the shadows, ready to pin him against a wall and call him ‘angel’. Nowhere was safe anymore. Except here, in this bathroom stall, with a locked door.

“Everybody loves you, Han. Everybody cares about you. Everybody wants you to know that you’re perfect.”

Not perfect. Was perfect. But not anymore. Not now he was tainted with the touches of an obsessive sadistic freak.

“All you have to do is unlock the door, Han. We won’t open it. We won’t come in. We’ll give you all the time you need, but you have to unlock the door.”

They wouldn’t come in? They wouldn’t touch him? They wouldn’t hurt him? That was … That was okay. Right? He could do that. Right? He could unlock the door. Right? He could … Yeah … He could do that.

The bolt made a loud clunk as it slid home and Jeonghan immediately threw himself away from the door, using his legs to push backwards until he was back in the corner with his arms hugging his knees and his head down.

“Thank you, Han.”

They sounded so sincere. Like they really meant it. Like they really were grateful for that tiny favour he could do for them. 

They sounded gentle. They sounded kind and understanding and safe. He wanted that, and he wanted it right now.

“Cheol?”

The word came out choked and strangled, distorted in a throat that was still burning with the sour taste of bile, and he cringed at his own voice. He had never heard a sound so broken.

“Yeah, Han, I’m right here. Shua and I are right here.”

Jeonghan’s legs barely held his weight as he braced his arm against the wall behind him and slowly pushed up with his thighs, stumbling slightly when his dizziness took a hold of him before he managed to steady his quivering body.

His hand shook so badly that he missed the door handle the first time he reached for it, but at last he eradicated that barrier between himself and the two people he knew were going to protect him from the world that was trying to kill him.

“Hey,” Joshua said immediately as he and Seungcheol straightened up from where they’d been kneeling on the floor. “Come here.”

He held out his hands, waiting for Jeonghan’s invitation, and when his older brother extended his own offering, Joshua stepped forwards and wrapped him in his arms. 

One hand cupped the back of Jeonghan’s head, the other rubbed soothing circles on his back and he finally felt like it was okay to stop crying.

“Are you alright?” Seungcheol whispered when the two finally drew apart. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need a doctor?”

Jeonghan opened his mouth to reply but before he could formulate the words, his eyes travelled over his leader’s shoulder and landed on the person standing by the door with their hands fiddling in front of them and their lip caught between their teeth.

“Chan found you first,” Joshua explained as Jeonghan turned away from the maknae and tried to wipe at the fluids from his face. “He came to get Cheol and I.”

“Hyung?” Chan whispered tentatively, edging forwards as though not quite sure he deserved to ask for a hug. “What was that about?”

Jeonghan shook his head, moving past the three of them to the sink where he could splash his reddened face with cold water, but also so that he didn’t have to look at them. 

They couldn’t know what he knew. They couldn’t feel the fear that he felt.

“Is it because you came out?”

He flinched, choking on some water that slipped down his throat as he whipped around and stared at Chan with his face dripping and his eyes as wide as saucers.

How far had that lie spread? Did they all know now? Were they all whispering about him behind his back? Did they think he had deceived them all these years? 

Did they think he was dating Kwangho?

“I’m sorry,” Chan said the second he saw his hyung’s expression. “It’s none of my business, I know, but, hyung … I don’t want to see you hurting like this just because you’re afraid of what we might think about you.”

If only that was his biggest problem. If only. If only. If only.

“Everyone wants you to be who you are, Han,” Seungcheol was saying as he took a step closer and Jeonghan had to resist the urge to push him back. “You being gay doesn’t change what we have.”

He could tell them right now. He could. He could say it right to their faces, “I’m not gay. Kwangho’s hurting me! I need help!”

They would protect him. They would keep him safe and, most importantly, they would keep him away from Kwangho.

_Not a word … Angel …_

And then he looked at Chan. And he imagined him screaming as he was pushed up against a wall with his face caged in those huge hands and his tongue forced to duel with an unwanted visitor. 

And he envisioned him muffling his sobs with a pillow in the dead of night so that no one would know how terrified he was to go to work the next morning.

And he knew that he couldn’t.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, lowering his gaze to the floor and raking his fringe out of his eyes. “I appreciate that.”

Let them believe the story they had fabricated by themselves. Let them run wild with it, comforting him for a battle he wasn’t fighting, because anything was better than letting them know the truth. Absolutely anything was better than the looks they would give him.

Pity. Judgement. Maybe even disgust. He was sure disgusted with himself.

“We love you, Han. You know that, right?”

They wouldn’t if they knew, and their love was the only thing he was clinging onto in order to stay alive. 

If they turned on him like they surely would if they found out what he’d been doing behind their backs then he would have no reason to live.

“Yeah. I know.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeonghan created a happy place, somewhere he could hide when Kwangho’s hands started their wandering, lower and lower every single time. 

He would think of the days they shot the “Healing” music video when the director yelled ‘action!’ and they all went sprinting down the beach with hollers of delight echoing from all sides.

He would remember that feeling of freedom and euphoria and how he couldn’t have stopped smiling even if the world was ending, and it was those memories that protected him from the brutal, horrifying reality he was starting to face on a daily basis.

Because Kwangho never passed up an opportunity to pull him into that studio and violate his body as he stood stock still and took every bit of it. 

He’d already learnt that resistance was futile. He was too weak and too cowardly to try.

Everyone was always asking him if he was alright, why he wasn’t eating as much as before, why he would shy away from the socialisation he used to love, but they didn’t want to know the answer. They really didn’t.

So he didn’t tell them. He didn’t say anything.

Not a word. 


	8. 제 7 장

Management found out.

Seungcheol had come rushing up to him in the middle of the corridor, seizing his arm and pulling him away from his conversation with Jihoon, and had told him that, somehow, his fake sexuality had been exposed to their CEO.

“They want to talk to you,” he’d said, gripping Jeonghan’s shoulders as the younger boy stared at him with his eyes as wide as tennis balls. “But I’m going to be there, okay? I’m not going to let them do anything to you, I swear.”

But Jeonghan hadn’t stopped shaking even as he took a seat beside his leader at the long mahogany table where the senior management team surveyed him with blank, emotionless expressions, and it had only gotten worse the moment that Kwangho walked in.

“Jeonghan-ssi,” their CEO started, brisk and business-like and looking deeply uncomfortable with the situation. “None of us are here to pass judgement on your … choice of personal preferences, but we all find it inherent that this be discussed.”

Seungcheol was holding his hand under the table and that was the only reason Jeonghan wasn’t throwing up right now. 

He was about to lose his job. He could feel it, and it didn’t matter if Seungcheol had promised to protect him, because there would be nothing he could do about it.

At least, if he got fired, he would be away from Kwangho.

Or would that only give the monster more chances to snatch him from the public eye? 

“I am going to be honest with you, Jeonghan-ssi, the easiest option would be to terminate your contract with Pledis Entertainment. The backlash that SEVENTEEN would receive if your homosexuality was leaked would be too damaging to come back from.”

Jeonghan’s world had a dampener on it. His ears felt like they were ringing and his fingers were tingling as Seungcheol burst into a fit of protests that were silenced by a simple raise of their CEO’s hand.

“However, the consequences of announcing your retirement from the group would be even more challenging to deal with, so we have decided to permit you to keep your placement with us.”

If Jeonghan wasn’t so numb, so terrified, and so desperate to sprint from that room as Kwangho continued to undress him with his eyes from across the table, he would have been furious.

The way they were treating him was disgusting. If he was a trainee – and actually gay – then they would fire him on the spot.

He was ashamed to admit that he had more important issues to worry about.

“But we are going to need you to sign a gag order as a legal agreement not to disclose your sexuality to anybody outside of this room. I am aware that your members may already know, but we would prefer it if the news stopped spreading immediately.”

The paper was pushed across the table towards him, the pen resting innocently on top, and Jeonghan didn’t even care about Seungcheol’s outraged arguments as he reached forwards to sign his name as fast as possible. 

Anything to get him out of that room.

“Is that everything?” he asked breathlessly, knowing he was being disrespectful but too desperate to care. “May I leave, Sir?”

The CEO barely had time to nod before Jeonghan was up and out of the door, Seungcheol right on his tail.

“They’re not getting away with this,” his leader fumed, taking him by the shoulders so that he had no choice but to look at him. “I’ll get a lawyer, I’ll file a complaint … They can’t treat you like this, Han. I’m not letting them.”

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan silenced. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to put up a fight. I just want to get on with my job.”

Seungcheol opened his mouth, already preparing a retort, but Kwangho chose that exact moment to insert himself into their conversation with an arm lassoing Jeonghan’s waist and pulling him so close that their bodies were pressed right up against each other.

The contact still brought Jeonghan an overwhelming sensation of disgust, but he had trained himself not to flinch whenever he felt those hands on his hips. He just reminded himself that they could be lower.

“I’m sorry about that, Angel,” Kwangho soothed, leaning in to press a kiss to Jeonghan’s temple. “I know it must have been hard on you.”

If Seungcheol saw the discomfort in Jeonghan’s expression then he said nothing about it. Instead, he actually heaved a sigh of relief and his face broke into a tired smile.

“Thank you,” he said to Kwangho. “For looking after him, hyung.”

Jeonghan went to his happy place. He remembered the wind in his hair and the sand beneath his feet and the sound of the ocean right beside him. 

Vast, endless, beautiful. Nobody could tame the ocean. Nobody could make it do things that it didn’t want to do.

He went to his happy place so that he wouldn’t have to listen to his best friend thanking the person who was abusing him and blackmailing him and making his life a living nightmare from which he could never wake up.

“I’ll see you later, Han, okay?”

Panic. That was all Jeonghan felt. Pure, sheer panic. 

His hand reached out instinctively towards Seungcheol’s retreating back as his lips formed the words,  _ don’t go _ , but his shoulder was seized in that vice-like grip he had grown so accustomed to and he was being dragged backwards before he could utter his pleading message.

“Isn’t it perfect, Angel?” Kwangho breathed in his ear, grabbing hold of both his wrists and pinning them to the wall above his head. “Now that everybody knows, we don’t have to sneak around anymore. I can kiss you in public whenever I want.”

Happy place. Happy place. Minghao finding a crab in the sand and running up the bank to show them with the biggest smile plastered across his face.

Lips on his neck, suckling, biting, pain …

Happy place. Happy place. Mingyu throwing Jihoon over his shoulder and sprinting into the ocean so he could throw him into the salty waves, ignoring the threats to his life.

Hands. Hands moving. Downwards. Further … 

Happy place. Happy place. Jun’s smile. Soonyoung’s laugh. Seokmin’s scream as Chan chased him up and down the beach with a string of seaweed he’d plucked from the water.

Belt. Belt coming off. No … No … Not that … Not that! Please, God, not that! Not that!

“Stop!” he sobbed, trying to pull his wrists free but Kwangho kept them fastened to the wall with only one hand as the other continued to battle with his belt buckle. “Please, stop! Please! I can’t do this! I can’t do this, please!”

“Don’t worry, Angel. I’ll look after you.”

“No … No … Please … Stop … HELP!”

It was the panic that made him do it, the knowledge of what was going to happen if somebody didn’t walk in right this minute. And he screamed as loudly as he possibly could, tears streaming down his cheeks and throat hoarse from choking on his cries.

“HELP ME! HE –”

Kwangho clapped his hand over his mouth, fingernails digging into his flesh and silencing his shouts, and Jeonghan closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see the anger that radiated from the face just a few inches in front of him.

“You really shouldn’t have done –”

The infuriated whisper was cut short, and Jeonghan barely had time to open his eyes before he was being tackled to the ground and Kwangho was straddling his hips, bending low over his body and keeping his hand firmly pressed against his captive’s lips.

And Jeonghan thought that was it. He thought it was going to happen there and then and he tried to kick and fight and scream but Kwangho took a fistful of his hair and pulled so hard that he felt the individual strands being ripped from his scalp.

“Shut up,” the monster hissed. “Stop moving.”

Jeonghan obeyed, instantly, in the desperate hope that it would get him out of this, but then he realised Kwangho’s true motives for silencing him the way he just had.

The door was opening. Someone was coming in. Someone had heard him screaming. They had to find him. They had to save him. 

But they were hidden. Him and Kwangho, concealed behind the table, and if he made a single sound then this beast on top of him was going to tear him to shreds.

“Hello?” the voice asked, concern and confusion lacing each syllable. “Anyone in here?”

Kwangho leaned closer, pressing his forehead into Jeonghan’s as an extra warning, hand still firmly planted over his victim’s lips and Jeonghan stayed silent. 

Anything to be good. Anything to stop …  _ that _ from happening.

The intruder – it had sounded like one of the producers – seemed to deduce that the panicked scream they’d heard had been some kind of auditory hallucination or just one of the artists messing around because he flicked the lights off, plunging Jeonghan and his abuser into darkness, and then left the room.

Kwangho waited, seemingly holding his breath, until the footsteps behind the door died away before he brought his fist down on Jeonghan’s face with as much force as he could muster.

Jeonghan was too stunned to even show his pain. His head was reeling, stars blinking, agony blossoming, and he couldn’t even see the figure looming above him but he could feel the fury leeching off it.

“You’re lucky, Angel …” came the hiss in his ear, Kwangho’s mouth so close that he could probably taste Jeonghan’s hair. “Today’s a busy day. We’ll have to postpone our little … activities until later when there’s nobody around to interrupt us.”

Jeonghan kept his eyes closed. He wondered that if he just stayed still, pretended to be unconscious, Kwangho would abandon him here on the floor. 

He could smell the bastard’s sweat, feel the heaviness of his body on top of him, and if he wasn’t released in the next thirty seconds then he was convinced that he was going to throw up.

“And I swear to you, Angel … I’m going to make you regret that.”

He was gone. Finally. He left him there in the pitch black, breaths heaving and cheek throbbing from the punch, still on his back with his eyes screwed shut and his mind in that happy place.

Kwangho was going to punish him for screaming, and he knew what that punishment would be. And absolutely no happy place would be able to save him from that.

_ I’m going to make you regret that. _

He staggered to his feet, disorientated and hiccupping like a pathetic little child as he stumbled through the darkness with his arms stretched blindly in front of him to detect the door. 

When he finally found it, he tumbled into the corridor so clumsily that his knees buckled and he crashed onto the floor with a thump.

But he got up. He started walking. 

It didn’t occur to him that he was practically hysterical, choking on his own tears as he moved through the hallways like some kind of overly emotional zombie. 

He didn’t care that someone was bound to round the corner any minute and see him.

All he could think about were those words and what they meant for his future.

_ I’m going to make you regret that. _

“Jeonghan-hyung?”

He blinked, too numb to reach up and rid his eyes of the tears but his vision cleared just enough to make out Seokmin’s frightened face swimming in front of him.

“Jeonghan-hyung, what’s wrong?”

_ I’m going to make you regret that. _

He couldn’t stand anymore. His body was shutting down. His body was trying to die, trying to protect him from what he was going to endure, from what he was powerless to prevent.

Because he couldn’t say a word. He couldn’t remember why. He just knew he couldn’t.

“Oh God … Hyung … I’ve got you.”

_ I’m going to make you regret that. _

On the floor. In Seokmin’s arms. Still crying. Still hyperventilating. Circling the drain of unconsciousness. 

The hands on his body and in his hair reminded him of Kwangho. Maybe they were Kwangho. He no longer had the mental capacity to tell the difference.

“Breathe, hyung … Breathe … Come on, hyung … Breathe … Somebody help me!”

_ I’m going to make you regret that. _


	9. 제 8 장

"Good Morning…?" 

The greeting was tentative and timid but it was still enough to break Jeonghan from his world of waking nightmares and he glanced up from where he was standing by the kitchen sink to see Jun hovering awkwardly in the doorway. 

"Morning," he answered robotically, turning back to the cups and plates he was scrubbing in the soapy basin. 

"How are you feeling?" 

Jeonghan felt the muscles in his shoulders tensing at the question. He knew he'd been a complete mess when Seokmin had found him yesterday but he was hoping that the others would have the tact not to bring it up. 

Apparently not. 

"I'm fine."

"Do you want to borrow some concealer? You know… For your face?" 

Jeonghan didn't turn around but he did raise his gaze to the window in front of him, glaring at the reflection of the purple rose Kwangho had planted on his cheek. 

He didn't give Jun an answer. He just picked up the scrubbing brush and started working away at the dried sauce stuck to the bottom of the frying pan. 

"Hyung…" Jun started again and it took everything Jeonghan had not to tell him to go away. "Did somebody… Did they hurt you yesterday?" 

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

Jeonghan bowed his head, allowing his fringe to fall in front of his eyes, as his scrubbing of the frying pan increased even though his fingers were starting to burn from the soap. 

They'd sent Jun to do this, to question him, because they knew that Jun was not someone who was refusable. He was gentle and innocent and the diamond in their lives. 

But Jeonghan couldn't say anything. 

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

"I know that there are people who aren't… Um...who aren't going to accept you for who you are." 

Stop talking. Jeonghan wanted him to stop talking. Just stop. 

_ I'm going to make you regret that. _

"But that doesn't mean they can… beat you up just because they don't like your sexuality."

Of course. It would make sense to assume somebody had punched him because they believed him to be gay. No one would ever think it was what it really was. 

_ Don't worry, Angel.  _

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

_ I'll look after you.  _

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

_ Not a word.  _

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

"You have to report it, hyung. No one gets to hurt you like that. You have to tell someone so they can be apprehended for what they did."

The tips of Jeonghan's fingernails were starting to bleed and the intensity of the sting was unimaginable as the soapy suds flooded the wounds, but he didn't stop scrubbing. 

It had to be clean. 

_ You're so beautiful.  _

_ Not a word.  _

_ Angel.  _

_ Regret. _

_ Not a word.  _

_ Don't worry.  _

_ Angel.  _

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

_ Think of the shame.  _

_ Angel.  _

_ Kiss you in public.  _

_ Not a word.  _

_ Whenever I want.  _

_ You're so beautiful.  _

_ Not a word. _

_ The shame.  _

_ Angel. _

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

Kwangho was back. Kwangho's hands were on his stomach, arms wrapping around him, confining him, restraining him from behind. 

"NO!" 

The scream that left Jeonghan's mouth was almost like a snarl. Like his body had been possessed by some wild animal that was cornered and injured so badly that ferocity was its only chance at survival. 

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

His fingers tightened around the frying pan's handle and he spun, adrenaline and terror giving him the strength he needed to heft the gigantic iron disc out of the water. 

_ I'm going to make you regret that.  _

He felt it make contact. He felt the impact ricocheting up his arms so forcefully that he dropped his weapon. 

_ Angel… _

The clang it made against the floor was too loud. Too, too loud and his legs gave out, bringing him to the kitchen tiles where he curled up in a ball with his hands over his ears. 

Kwangho’s fingerprints were burning into his skin, leaving the permanent scars etched into his body so the whole world would know that Jeonghan was his and only his.

Shadows were flitting to and fro in front of him, their silhouettes visible even through his closed eyes, and then there was a voice that he knew so well. A voice that he loved. A voice that wasn’t Kwangho’s.

“What happened?”

Jeonghan’s eyes flew open at the sound of Soonyoung, tears spilling down his cheeks at the thought of his dongsaeng finding him, saving him, protecting him from the hands that just wouldn’t go away. 

But then he took in the scene in front of him, and his relief was replaced with horror.

Soonyoung propelled himself across the room and skidded to his knees beside Jun who was slumped against the kitchen cabinets, face twisted in agony and right arm cradled against his chest. 

There was blood on his hand, the gigantic slice in his palm leaking the scarlet fluid through his fingers and the broken glass was everywhere.

The frying pan was still on the floor, and then Jeonghan realised what he’d done.

He’d hit Jun and he’d fallen straight into the stack of glasses on the counter, their flimsy exteriors shattering under his weight and their icy teeth slicing into his skin. 

Jeonghan had hit Jun. He’d hit his best friend.

“Can you move it?” Soonyoung was saying, laying his hand on Jun’s injured arm as though he were handling the strings of a spider’s web, terrified they would break under his touch. “Can you wiggle your fingers?”

Jun was biting down on his lip, hard enough to break through the skin as he managed to twitch his bloodied digits, but that seemingly insignificant movement appeared to cause him an inordinate amount of pain.

“Jun?” Jeonghan whispered, uncurling himself from the ball he’d made on the floor and crawling forwards, gingerly avoiding the glass shards littering the tiles. “Jun, I … I’m so sorry …”

“Stay over there, hyung,” Soonyoung ordered and Jeonghan shrank back at the bitterness to his dongsaeng’s voice. “There’s too much glass. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Jeonghan nodded his understanding but he couldn’t ignore the screaming voice in the back of his head that was telling him Soonyoung was trying to keep him away from Jun. Because he thought he was dangerous. Crazy. Dirty.

_ Think of the shame. _

“I’ll call a company car. You need to go to the hospital.”

He couldn’t stay there any longer. 

He couldn’t look at Jun’s pained expressions or hear his shallow breathing or smell the blood that crusted his little brother’s skin. 

He couldn’t see the injuries that he’d caused, all because he thought that Jun was Kwangho.

“Hyung!” somebody yelled after him but he ignored them, scrambling up off the floor and bolting for the door.

_ You hurt him. You hurt him. You hurt him. _

It was an accident.

_ But you hurt him. You hit him with a frying pan. _

I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it was him.

_ Of course, you did. He was talking to you right before. He was trying to help you. _

It was an accident! I would never hurt him on purpose!

_ Just think, if that pan had hit his head, you’d have killed him. _

Jeonghan stumbled into the bathroom and slammed the door shut, numb fingers fumbling with the lock before he managed to slide it closed, successfully bolting himself inside these four walls where nobody could hurt him and he could hurt nobody.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket and he dug it out, needing to find some music to calm the panic bubbling higher and higher inside of him, but his breath froze in his chest at the sight of the text message plastered across the screen.

**From:** Kwangho

Missed you today, Angel. I hope you’re not avoiding me. I have something really special planned for the next time I see you.

Jeonghan flung open the medicine cabinet and started ripping at the cardboard cartons piled high on each shelf. They fell around him like some kind of drug avalanche, but at last his fingers closed around his target.

Sleeping pills.

_ Something really special planned. _

_ I’m going to make you regret that. _

He wasted no time in screwing the cap off and throwing his head back, preparing to swallow.

_ Remember, Angel … Not a word. _


	10. 제 9 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED THEN I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHY YOU'RE READING THIS STORY BUT THIS IS THE CHAPTER YOU'RE GOING TO WANT TO SKIP!

They say that every person who survives a suicide attempt reports the regret they felt just before they lost consciousness or hit the water, but Jeonghan felt none of that. The only thing that he felt was fear, and that was a million times stronger.

Fear for whoever would find him pale and pulseless on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own vomit. Fear for what they would do and how they would cope when the doctor pulled off his spectacles with a solemn expression and pronounced him dead. 

Fear for how Kwangho would act after his prey was buried six feet under, no longer available for the abuse it seemed he was destined to receive.

He could go after one of the others. He could hurt them, humiliate them, terrify them the exact same way Jeonghan himself had been and still was. 

As long as he kept breathing, he was Kwangho’s sole target. As long as he stayed alive, Kwangho wouldn’t touch the others. Not when he had his precious angel. 

It was because of them – his best friends and his brothers – that Jeonghan put down the pill bottle and opened the bathroom door to face the reality of what he’d just done and what he was about to endure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He got the news at 8 in the evening when Soonyoung peered around his bedroom door to see him curled up on top of his bed covers with his eyes staring blankly into space and his mind floating around in his happy place.

“Jun’s arm isn’t broken,” Soonyoung said softly as he crossed the room and gingerly sank onto the side of Jeonghan’s bed, looking as though he wasn’t sure if it was okay to touch him. “He’ll have to wear a sling for a week or so, but, for the most part, it’s just bruised. And they can take the stitches out of his hand next Thursday.”

Jeonghan didn’t respond verbally, but he knew that his audible sigh portrayed the relief he felt at hearing Jun was alright. 

He wasn’t sure he would have been able to forgive himself if he’d broken one of his best friend’s bones and potentially ended his dancing career forever.

“Hyung?” Soonyoung whispered, and Jeonghan couldn’t help the flinch as he felt a hand resting on his leg. “I think you need to see someone. A psychiatrist or a psychologist or … I don’t really know what they’re called, but I think you have some stuff you need to talk about with someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

They were sending him to a shrink. 

Because he’d gone crazy. Because he’d hit Jun. Because his face was bruised and smeared with tears and he felt like his life force was slowly draining and draining and some day in the very near future, it would just die.

Maybe he should die with it. Maybe he should have taken those pills.

“You should get some sleep,” Soonyoung muttered, seeming to realise that he wasn’t about to get a response from this catatonic boy on the bed. “We have to be at the studio kind of early tomorrow morning so we can start recording.”

He got up, the mattress inflating slightly with the loss of weight, and Jeonghan hadn’t realised he was going to say something until the words were already slipping past his cracked, dried lips.

“I can’t go to work tomorrow.”

Soonyoung stopped. He took a second to process the comment and then returned to his perch on the bed, gently squeezing his hyung’s thigh. 

Jeonghan knew it was intended to be an act of comfort, but all it did was remind him of Kwangho. Kwangho and those touches that never knew when to stop.

“Jeonghan-hyung,” Soonyoung said, and the full use of Jeonghan’s name didn’t go unnoticed. “You know that you can trust me with anything, right? Absolutely anything. If somebody’s … hurting you or harassing you or giving you a hard time because of … everything … then you can tell me and I promise I will do absolutely everything I can to protect you.” 

He was right there with his arms open and his hugs at the ready and all Jeonghan had to do was say it. All he had to do was force his lips to form the words and push them through the narrowing passageway of his throat.

“Kwangho’s going to hurt me.”

That’s all he had to say. But then would come the questions. How is he hurting you? What’s he doing? Why? Have you told anyone? Do you want to report it? Should we call the police? 

And Jeonghan couldn’t handle that.

He would have to use words that he didn’t want to use. He would have to describe things that he didn’t want to describe and then he would have to tell other people. He would have to tell Seungcheol, the police, his CEO, the rest of his members … He couldn’t do that.

“Just … Just know that I’m always here, hyung. Okay?”

He was leaving. Soonyoung was leaving because Jeonghan had spent too long lost inside his head and now it was too late because Soonyoung was leaving and the door was closing and … And Soonyoung was gone.

Jeonghan had missed his chance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He died the very next day.

His body would still roam the earth for many more years to come but his spirit and his soul and everything that made him Yoon Jeonghan – the hyung, the brother and the friend – was killed the second Kwangho swiped him from the corridor.

He’d known it was coming. All day long he’d been waiting for the bomb to explode and his life to end and his abuser to get what he had always wanted. 

The others had all been giving him worried glances – save for Jun who was resting at home – and he knew they were frightened. For him. Of him. It didn’t matter anymore.

But Jeonghan made himself a promise that day: he was not going to cry.

He would not show Kwangho how terrified he was. He would not sob or beg or plead for anything. He would not give that monster the final sliver of dignity he somehow still possessed.

There was nothing he could do to stop the oncoming hurricane. He couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t hide. He couldn’t run. Kwangho made sure of that as he loitered in the corner of every room, his beady hawk-like eyes never leaving his victim just in case he made an attempt at escape.

Jeonghan died that day. 

He knew that from the moment he stepped out of the bathroom and felt an arm wrapping around his waist, iron-tight, merciless, and his knees almost gave out beneath him as he was tugged through the nearest door.

And into Jihoon’s studio. 

He panicked. Not Jihoon’s studio. Not where Jihoon worked. Not where Jihoon ate and slept. Not where Jihoon felt safe. But it wasn’t as if he had a say anymore.

“I couldn’t wait another minute.”

His back familiarised itself with the wall as he was shoved into it with unnecessary ferocity, head bouncing painfully off the plaster and sending stars shooting across his vision even as he tried to blink them away. Or maybe it was the tears he was trying to blink away.

“No one’s supposed to be down here for hours.”

His neck was already being devoured, sensitive skin snagged between ravenous fangs and the first drop of blood dribbled over his collarbones. 

It felt like Kwangho was eating him, not just his body but everything else as well.

“We can take all the time we need.”

He wasn’t going to cry. He was not going to cry. And he wasn’t going to fight. Fighting would make it worse. Fighting would get him hurt. He already knew he wasn’t strong enough to win a battle of physicality. 

And as long as Kwangho was tearing him to fleshy shreds, the others would be safe. 

“So, Angel … Are you going to apologise for that little stunt you pulled the other day?”

No. He would never apologise. He was worth more than that. He knew he was worth more than that. He thought he was worth more than that. Because he was … right?

“No? That’s okay. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be grovelling on your knees. Just how I like it.”

Fingers curled into his hair and Jeonghan’s head was snapped to the left so violently that he felt something crack in his neck and his entire right side immediately exploded with a burning fire of pins and needles that prevented him from throwing out an arm to stop himself crashing onto the floor.

Kwangho climbed on top of him, straddling his torso and leaning down – closer and closer and closer – until he could smell the suffocating scent of cologne and the overwhelming stench of breath mints. He could tell the bastard had made an effort this morning.

“I know it’s kind of early, Angel,” came the whisper in his ear and it was all Jeonghan could do to keep his eyes open. 

He would not close them. If Kwangho was going to do this to him then he would have to look him in the eye. 

“But I don’t care. I want to tell you right now. I love you.”

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. 

The beach. Remember? The beach. Minghao’s smile as he found that crab. Mingyu sweeping Jihoon off his feet and throwing him in the sea. Chan chasing Seokmin with a tendril of seaweed. 

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.

 _Slap_.

His face was burning. He screwed his eyes shut before he remembered his promise to himself and forced them open again.

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.

 _Slap_.

“Oh, baby, you’re bleeding …”

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.

“Red’s such a good colour on you.”

 _Punch_.

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.

“Feel like apologising yet?”

Don’t cry. Go to your happy place. Don’t you dare let him see you cry.

 _Punch_.

Jun finding the crab. Chan chasing Hansol with the seaweed. No. That wasn’t right. Jun hadn’t found the crab. Who had found the crab? And who had Chan been chasing? Was it even Chan who was doing the chasing?

_Punch. Punch. Punch._

He gave up on keeping his eyes open. It hurt too much to try.

“You could have made it so much easier on yourself. If only you felt the same way about me as I do about you.”

Happy place. Happy place. Beach. Sand. Sky. Sea. Can’t picture it. Can’t remember. Need to remember. Need the happy place. Need it now!

“It doesn’t matter though.”

_SMACK!_

“I think I like it better when you cry. It makes me feel so powerful, Angel. You have no idea.”

Buttons pattered to the floor as his shirt was ripped open, the cold air engulfing his chest and pricking his exposed skin with goosebumps before Kwangho was breathing on him. 

Too close. Way too close. Lips, too. Lips on his stomach.

He didn’t want this. He wanted to fight. Struggle. Get away. Save himself. But his muscles were nothing but useless slabs of frozen fibre. 

They wouldn’t move. He wouldn’t move. He needed to fight. He had to fight. But he couldn’t.

Where was the happy place? Why had it abandoned him when he needed it most?

“You’re so beautiful.”

His belt was gone. He heard the zipper.

“I can’t believe you’re all mine.”

Jeonghan died that day.


	11. 제 10 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everybody, for your comments and concern. I am feeling so much better

He couldn’t move.

It felt like every bone in his back was broken. He had long since lost all sensation in his legs. It was entirely possible that they weren’t even there anymore. 

There was blood. A lot of it, fused to his skin and crusting in the carpet beneath him.

He was laying on his stomach, tear-soaked face pressed into the floor, bruised eyes swollen shut. 

He’d lost count of how many times Kwangho had hit him, how many times he’d bitten him and insulted him and degraded him and ordered him to apologise.

And he had. He’d apologised. Anything to make the pain stop. Anything to make everything stop. But it hadn’t. It had kept going. 

And now he was lying on the floor of Jihoon’s studio, bruised and bleeding and wishing he’d just swallowed those pills the previous night.

There were no tears left to cry. There were no words to say. No way to scream for help because if anybody found him like this, he wouldn’t be able to live with it. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t make a sound.

_Not a word, Angel._

That was the last thing Kwangho had said to him as he nuzzled into his neck and stroked his hair. Tainted. Bloody. Poisoned. And then he’d left him here. Tainted. Bloody. Poisoned. Lying on the floor of Jihoon’s studio, waiting for somebody to find him.

Tainted. _Beautiful_. Bloody. _Angel_. Poisoned. _Mine_. Disgusting.

“Hello? Is somebody in here?”

No. Go away. He didn’t want to be found. He didn’t want to be seen like this. Tainted. Bloody. Poisoned. He didn’t want to be looked at. He didn’t want to be touched. Go away. No. Go away.

“Oh … Oh my God.”

Jeonghan kept his eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness in order to protect himself from the humiliation, but the tears were already gliding steadily over his nose to soak into the carpet underneath him. Apparently, there had been more to cry.

“Hyung … Holy … Okay … Okay …”

His breaths were hitching, body trembling, but he still couldn’t move. He couldn’t wiggle his toes or his fingers and he didn’t know whether that was from the shock or because Kwangho had broken his neck with how many times he’d slammed his head into the ground.

“Stay still, hyung. Don’t move. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Something was draped over him, soft and smooth and he instantly recognised the familiar sensation of leather against his blood-smeared skin. 

It was Jihoon’s jacket. Jihoon had found him and now Jihoon was going to have this image burned into his memory for the rest of his life.

“Help! I need help! Somebody help me!”

No. Not more people. He couldn’t take any more people seeing … this. But he couldn’t speak. He had to stay quiet. Silent. He couldn’t say anything. Not a word. That’s what Kwangho had told him. 

_Not a word, Angel._

“What’s going … Jihoon?”

"Wonwoo, grab my phone from my bag and call an ambulance. Now.”

“I … Oh … Okay … Okay, I got it.”

He wanted to die. He wanted the world to stop and the darkness to come and his heart to lay down to rest forever. He wanted Wonwoo and Jihoon to leave him here in a pool of his own blood so he could choke on his tears until he drowned.

“Ambulance, please. My … My friend … Just please send someone … Please …”

“It’s okay, Jeonghan-hyung. Help’s coming. You’re going to be just fine. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

But Jeonghan wanted him to go somewhere. Anywhere. He wanted him to go away and let him die in peace. And in pain. 

But he couldn’t tell them that. He couldn’t say anything. 

_Not a word, Angel._

He couldn’t say anything ever again.

He must have passed out for a good ten or fifteen minutes because the next thing he knew, he was on his back with a baby blue blanket covering him from chin to toe. 

There was an oxygen mask over his face, he could see the top of it even though his vision was blurred, and there was a collar around his neck that dug mercilessly into the underside of his jaw.

It felt suffocating and he tried to reach up to rip it away but a hand closed around his wrist. 

The fingers were so tight, tight enough to leave bruises on a body that was already battered black and blue, and he looked up to see the face that was going to haunt his nightmares for eternity.

“It’s okay, Angel,” Kwangho cooed, running a hand through his hair. “You’re going to the hospital.”

Tears flooded Jeonghan’s eyes, panic and fear mingling into one toxic cocktail, and he opened his mouth to scream but no sound would come out. 

His jaw barely even moved due to the rigidness of the collar and the blocks that were securing his head to the backboard.

“No, no, no,” Kwangho soothed him, and Jeonghan only now processed that he was moving, being wheeled out into the car park where an ambulance undoubtedly awaited. “Don’t try to talk. There’s nothing you need to say.”

_Not a word, Angel._

It was the same message but they were different words. Kwangho was telling him the same thing without alerting the paramedics to the real reason why he wasn’t letting go of Jeonghan’s hand.

“Han? Han?”

Seungcheol? Seungcheol was here? Jeonghan’s free arm flailed outwards, battling its way out of the blanket cocoon as he tried to find his best friend with fingers he still couldn’t feel.

“I’m here, Han. I’m here. I’m right here.”

He could feel him. Seungcheol holding his hand. Seungcheol holding him tight. But Kwangho was still on his other side with his fingers digging into his fragile skin and broken bones, and the only thing he could think to do was fight.

Fight and get away. Save himself. Save himself from further pain and shame. 

No more beatings. No more kisses. No more being forced to play the role that was required of him when it was the very last thing he wanted. No more.

“Han! Han, please, calm down!”

He couldn’t. He had to fight. He had to get away. He was thrashing, snatching at the tape that was fixing his head to the two huge blocks either side of his skull and trying to tear it off. 

Trying to get up, trying to push the hands away, trying to escape Kwangho because Kwangho was always there.

“Han! Han, look at me! Look at me, just me. It’s alright. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

_So beautiful … You’re mesmerising, Angel._

He was crying, sobbing in hysterics but he couldn’t reach up to wipe away the tears because now there were solid grips on both his wrists, pinning them to the gurney at his sides.

They were holding him down. Preparing him for another round of torture. For another assault. For more pain and shame and terror. 

_My gorgeous little angel._

Kwangho’s face was looming over him, lips moving, but the only thing he could hear was white noise. 

He was going deaf. Kwangho had made him deaf as well as broken his neck and crushed his ribs and made him bleed.

There was a sharp scratch in the crook of his elbow and his back arched off the gurney in one desperate attempt to get away before the world around him was shrouded in darkness and his eyes fluttered closed.

The last thing he saw was Kwangho. Always Kwangho. For the rest of his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeonghan awoke to white.

White walls, white sheets, white polyester pyjamas. 

In the back of his mind, he knew he was in a hospital, and the needles embedded in the back of his hands and the crook of his elbow only secured that fact, but it didn’t make him feel any safer.

The moment he opened his eyes, images were assaulting him, one after the other and then all of them all at once just to ensure he knew exactly what had happened and how it had made him feel. 

His limbs felt unbelievably heavy and he still couldn’t quite move his toes but the brace was gone from his neck so at least he knew his spine hadn’t snapped.

“You’re awake.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. 

He couldn’t be here, too. They couldn’t have let him in. He wasn’t family. He wasn’t a friend. In Jeonghan’s eyes he wasn’t even human. He was a monster. 

But he was a monster sitting beside the bed right now with his fingers closed around Jeonghan’s hand.

“You had me worried there, Angel. I thought I’d been too rough on you.”

He was leaning in. His hand was wandering into Jeonghan’s hair. The touch was the same. The fingers were the same. The eyes were the same. 

Predatory. Lustful. Greedy.

“Don’t worry if your arms feel heavy. They had to sedate you after you threw your little tantrum.”

Jeonghan wanted to scream. He could scream, right? He should scream. Somebody would come running, would get this monster away from him, would take the hands off him. The hands that had touched what didn’t belong to them just a few hours ago.

Kwangho was breathing on him, one hand looped around Jeonghan’s wrist and the other running its fingers through his dirty, greasy, disgusting hair. 

He was smiling at him, like a cat toying with a mouse, and even if Jeonghan decided to scream, he wasn’t sure he could have.

“I just want to tell you, Angel,” the feline whispered, fingers curling in the strands on Jeonghan’s head. “I’ve never had one like you before. I know I got a little carried away but I couldn’t stop myself, baby. You’re just so perfect and pretty and I never knew that blood got me so turned on …”

He trailed off, running a finger over what Jeonghan now realised were stitches arching over his left eyebrow, and from the dull throb that exploded in its wake, he knew it must have bruised pretty spectacularly as well.

He probably looked a complete fucking mess, littered with scarlet and purple and black. How the hell could Kwangho look at him and not run for the hills with his mouth stretched wide in a scream?

That mouth … That mouth had done awful things to him … Without his permission …

“I know it goes without saying,” Kwangho murmured, face so close that their noses were almost touching. “But let’s keep this between us, okay, Angel? I don’t think anyone else needs to know. It’ll be our little secret. Don’t you agree?”

Jeonghan hated how frightened he was. He hated how this person made him feel like a child, too terrified to open his mouth and scream for the people who could save him. 

He was a grown man and he shouldn’t be this easy to knock down and walk over like a doormat, but he was putty in Kwangho’s hands.

“Not a word. You understand, don’t you, Angel? Not a word.”

Jeonghan nodded, and his head burst into one gigantic mushroom cloud of nausea-inducing dizziness and a bolt of lightning ricocheted down his spinal cord, but he didn’t care. 

He would do anything in this world to keep that pain – that fear – as far away from him as possible.

“That's my baby …”

The door opened and if Jeonghan could, he would have screamed in relief as he saw Wonwoo emerging from the corridor outside with two steaming coffee cups balanced precariously in one hand while the other was clutching his phone.

“Hey, hyung?” he muttered, still with his gaze fixed on his mobile screen. “The police are going to want to …”

He glanced up and Jeonghan saw the colour drain from his face at the sight that lay before him: his hyung trembling beneath the hospital bedsheets, looking like a blonde Frankenstein with the number of bandages and steri-strips he had plastered over his skin, and Kwangho holding his hand with an expression of pure love on his deceitfully evil face.

“Hyung … Hi …”

The coffee cups were carefully transferred to the bedside table and then Wonwoo was sinking into the chair beside him and Jeonghan grabbed his hand so viciously he might have broken skin. 

He needed to feel contact that wasn’t poisonous and painful. He needed to feel somebody who loved him and not just his body.

“He hasn’t said anything yet,” Kwangho spoke up from the other side of the bed, and Jeonghan knew it was another warning. “But that’s okay. You take your time, right, Angel?”

Jeonghan started crying. He didn’t even try to suppress it because he’d done that for too long. 

He was scared and he was trapped and Wonwoo was right in front of him with the kindest of smiles on his face and all Jeonghan had to do was say one word.

One tiny little word.

 _Help_.

But he couldn’t. Kwangho was gripping his other hand like a torture vice, tightening and tightening and tightening and Wonwoo could see the fear in his hyung’s eyes but he wouldn’t know the cause unless Jeonghan told him.

But Jeonghan couldn’t.

“It’s okay, hyung,” Wonwoo whispered. “It’s okay. I’m right here. You’re safe here. I promise. You’re safe.”

No. No, he really wasn’t.


	12. 제 11 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! Me and MinYun have just started posting a SEVENTEEN collab together so please go and check it out! Love you all!

“He was raped, wasn’t he?”

Jihoon spat out the question barely three seconds after the doctor had taken a seat on the chair in front of them with her lips stretched thin and her face dripping with sympathy she’d been trained to feel, and Seungcheol felt like his entire body was on fire.

Everybody in the room – him, Jihoon, Soonyoung, the doctor and their manager – was thinking the exact same thing but it took the youngest out of all of them to finally voice the question they all knew had to be addressed sooner or later.

Postponing it was only going to make it worse when that time finally came.

“Yes,” the doctor said, crossing one leg over the other to make herself more comfortable in a situation that was defined as uncomfortable. “There is evidence that Jeonghan-ssi was sexually assaulted.”

Jihoon nodded, biting down on the inside of his cheek and staring at the floor. Soonyoung pitched forwards in his seat, burying his face in his hands and letting out the longest, most painful-sounding of sighs. And Seungcheol’s world came crashing down on top of him.

There was no coming back from this.

“So …” their manager started, blinking rapidly as though he couldn’t quite see straight. “What’s the protocol here? Do you … There’s a thing that you do, right? In cases like this?”

“We do offer the choice of a rape kit,” the doctor acknowledged, and there it was again. The word that Seungcheol had always hated to use. “But it is not a necessary requirement in Jeonghan-ssi’s care. Kits are performed predominantly for the extraction and preservation of evidence, such as DNA, that may be used in court at a later date.”

“Well … We should do that, right?” Soonyoung rasped out, looking around at everybody else in the room for support. “We can find out who did this from the DNA and we can tell the police.”

“That would be one way of identifying the assailant or assailants …”

Seungcheol’s skin was crawling. It was too hot in here. This couldn’t be happening.

“But we are required by law to receive written and verbal consent from Jeonghan-ssi before we conduct any kind of physical examination. Rape kits are intrusive and considering how recent the assault was, there is a chance that it would do more harm than good. If he refuses then we cannot proceed. He needs to know that he has complete and utter control of the situation.”

“So what can you do?” the manager countered, and there was the slightest hint of resentment in his voice. “How do you … fix him?”

Fix him? What a disgusting choice of phrasing. Jeonghan was broken, yeah, but he wasn’t some faulty cog in a once-perfectly-functioning system. They couldn’t just oil him or put him back together and expect him to get back to normal. That’s not how this worked.

The doctor showed no emotion as she replied, just like she’d been taught, “We’ve taken blood samples to test for STDs and HIV, and we can prescribe pain killers to help with the cheekbone fracture and the broken ribs, but I’m afraid the only way to ‘fix him’ as you put it, Sir, is to offer him the opportunity to talk to a therapist and ensure that he has a strong support system around him.”

It was real. This was all actually real. Jeonghan had been raped in Jihoon’s studio, right underneath their noses while they were recording only one floor above. They were in the same building, probably laughing and joking, while their best friend was …

“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol choked out, bracing his hands on the doctor’s desk in order to push himself up from his chair. “But you’ll have to excuse me.”

He staggered out of the office and into the corridor, making a desperate break for the bathroom but he never made it. His knees gave out halfway and he crumpled to the floor with a pathetic sob of grief and guilt, fingers pressed over his mouth to stop himself from vomiting.

Even through his closed eyes, he could see the shadow of somebody lowering themselves down in front of him and he looked up to find Hansol kneeling on the polished panels with his face soaked in tears.

“We were right, weren’t we?” he whispered, and Seungcheol nodded his head once. “Oh, God …”

Hansol flopped sideways, his legs sliding out from underneath him so he could rest his back against the wall. They all felt like they were disintegrating because the worst possible thing that could have happened had happened and they’d done nothing to stop it.

“We should have known,” Seungcheol sobbed into his own palm, eyes screwed up to hide from the pain. “He was having panic attacks and he was lashing out and he had bruises and we did nothing. We … Someone was scaring him so badly that he couldn’t even talk to us about it.”

The guilt was eating him alive. It was devouring him, gnawing on every sliver of his soul and he had never felt less worthy of being their leader. For a second, he wished it had been him in Jeonghan’s place, but then he remembered how much blood there had been and he retracted that thought at once.

It only made him feel worse about himself.

“The police are doing a forensics exam in Jihoon-hyung’s studio,” Hansol supplied blankly. “Because there was … so much … fluid … yeah … there’s a really good chance that they can pick up some DNA and find out who did it, but it’s going to take a while.”

Seungcheol felt bile crawling up his throat, burning his palette with its sour taste, but he swallowed it back down. He didn’t deserve to show weakness. He didn’t deserve to suffer when Jeonghan was here in this hospital, beaten half to death and violated in the worst possible way.

“He’s awake,” Hansol stuttered, and Seungcheol raised his head slightly. “Wonwoo-hyung texted a while ago. He’s not talking yet and apparently he won’t let go of Kwangho-hyung’s hand and he keeps crying but he’s awake. He … He’s really, really scared.”

“We are the worst people in the world, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Seungcheol gave himself two more minutes on that hospital corridor floor, pawing at the tears on his face and in his eyes with the sleeves of his sweatshirt, before he steeled himself and rose to his feet, reaching down to offer Hansol a helping hand.

“You should go home,” he said. “The police are coming round this afternoon and they want all of us there to interview.”

“You’re not coming?” Hansol whispered tentatively, huge Bambi eyes boring into his leader’s face.

Seungcheol shook his head, extending a hand so he could ruffle Hansol’s hair affectionately. It was a pathetic stab at comfort but it was the best he could do in this moment where he felt like he was as bad as whoever had pinned Jeonghan against the floor and hurt him in that way.

“I’m going to go and see Han.”

He turned on his heel but he hadn’t taken more than a single step when Hansol called after him, voice trembling almost as much as his knees were knocking together.

“Tell him we love him.”

Seungcheol paused without turning around, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a brief second of denial where he tried to pretend this wasn’t really happening before he shot back his reply of “of course I will” before he was gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hello? Han?”

He pushed the door open, terrified of what might await him on the other side.

The last time he’d seen Jeonghan, his best friend had been strapped to a gurney with his bare body blemished with bruises and bleeding from everywhere, an oxygen mask clamped over his face and nothing but pure terror in his eyes before they drugged him into unconsciousness.

He stepped into the room and immediately saw Kwangho at Jeonghan’s side, combing through the sleeping boy’s hair and gripping that papery, fragile little hand resting against the bed covers.

“Oh, hyung,” he stuttered as he gently closed the door behind him. “I didn’t know you were in here. Sorry.”

Kwangho smiled at him and Seungcheol crossed the room in three strides so he could sink into the hardbacked chair beside Jeonghan. He needed to be close. He needed to know his little brother hadn’t disappeared or died while he’d been gone.

“He still hasn’t said anything?”

“Not a word,” Kwangho responded immediately, flicking a stray lock of Jeonghan’s hair behind his ear. “And I don’t think he will for a while.”

Seungcheol had to resist the urge to curse as he cautiously reached forwards and took Jeonghan’s other hand. 

“If the police ever find out who did this … I’m going to kill them.”

He knew it was a ridiculous thing to say and he didn’t blame Kwangho for smirking slightly at the unrealistic claim of violence coming from a boy who couldn’t even kill the spiders in the bathtub. But there was no anger compared to that which he felt at this very moment, looking down at Jeonghan’s bruised face.

Kwangho yawned and he tried to conceal the motion behind his hand but, as a leader, Seungcheol was trained to spot exhaustion in those who tried to hide it and he was instantly on alert and in full-blown mother hen mode.

“Go home, hyung,” he said at once. “I’ll stay here with him.”

There was a flash of panic in Kwangho’s eyes and he seemed to hold Jeonghan’s limp hand even tighter as he shook his head and opened his mouth, presumably preparing some kind of polite refusal, but Seungcheol was having none of it.

“I know you care about him, hyung,” he soothed, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the back of his little brother’s hand. “I know you’ve been looking after him and I’m really thankful to you for that, but you can’t sit here for the rest of your life. Go home, get some rest and then come back later.”

Kwangho still looked conflicted, eyes narrowed ever so slightly as his gaze flickered between the unconscious boy in the bed and the exhausted boy in the chair beyond that bed.

“I’ll call you if he says anything,” Seungcheol concluded, and that finally seemed to do the trick.

“Okay,” Kwangho agreed as he leaned forwards to press his lips into Jeonghan’s hair. “Sleep well, Angel.” 

Seungcheol was once again struck by how much this man must love this boy if he was going to stick by his side despite the prejudice he faced in this industry and he raised his hand in farewell as Kwangho gave the idol in the bed one last longing look and then forced himself to leave the room.

The door had barely swung shut when Jeonghan’s eyes flew open and both his hands leapt to Seungcheol’s, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing as his mouth opened but no sound came out.

“Hey,” Seungcheol cried, overcoming the initial shock so he could calm his dongsaeng down. “It’s alright. It was just a nightmare. It’s okay. I’m right here. It’s okay.”

Jeonghan’s eyes zipped backwards and forwards as though he were searching the room for something, his iron-tight grip on Seungcheol’s fingers not loosening even for a second. There was one emotion painted in every crease of his bruised and beaten face: fear.

“Han, calm down. You’re safe here. I promise you. Kwangho just went home for a rest but he’ll be back, I swear to you. It’s okay. Just breathe.”

But if anything, Jeonghan’s panic seemed to increase as his grasp tightened and his eyes flooded with tears that spilled down his cheeks in torrents, entire body trembling and heart monitor spiking with a dangerous frequency.

“Breathe,” Seungcheol told him, unsure whether pulling him into a hug would make things worse and he eyed the emergency call button beside the bed, fearing that Jeonghan was about to have a heart attack. “Breathe, Han. I’m here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise you. I’m not leaving you. Just breathe, baby. Come on.”

Jeonghan was clinging to him like a child, fingernails digging into his leader’s skin as though he truly believed the world would end if he let go, and it broke Seungcheol’s heart in two even though he recognised his younger brother’s breathing was starting to slow as he managed to calm himself with the leader’s words.

“That’s it. You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you. You did so good, Han. So good.”

The heart monitor eventually returned to a normal – and no longer terrifyingly fast – rhythm but Jeonghan was still crying softly and his mouth continued to remain open as though he desperately wanted to say something.

“Han,” Seungcheol started, bringing the younger boy’s hand up to his lips. “Han, if there’s something you want to tell me then you can. I swear I’m going to protect you from whatever it is you’re scared of. You can tell me anything.”

Jeonghan’s lips formed a couple of incoherent shapes and Seungcheol waited with baited breath, praying to God that his best friend was about to reveal his attacker so they could get the guy tossed in a jail cell for the rest of his life.

But seconds dragged into minutes and still Jeonghan made no sound. Not a single word emerged from the throat that had fingerprint-shaped bruises burnt into the milky flesh, and the tears were still steadily oozing from his glazed eyes.

“It’s okay, Han,” Seungcheol told him, tightening his grip on the boy’s fingers. “You don’t have to say anything until you’re ready.”

He sat with Jeonghan and held his hand until his best friend cried himself to sleep. 


	13. 제 12 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know very little about the layout of police interviews so please don't come after me if there are inaccuracies :)

Joshua was sitting on a ridiculously uncomfortable chair that had him wriggling every thirty seconds while his leg bounced nervously and his fingers tapped rhythmical patterns on his thighs as he waited.

The police station was not somewhere he’d hoped to ever find himself but they’d been called down for interviewing the previous day and it wasn’t as if they could refuse. Seungcheol was still with Jeonghan but he’d called to tell them to go in pairs, to tell the truth and to look after each other.

It sounded crazy – he knew he’d done nothing wrong – but there was a horrible niggling feeling he got every time an officer walked past him that he was suddenly going to get wrenched out of this chair, pinned face-first into the wall and handcuffed.

The door directly opposite him opened and Jihoon emerged, looking pale and exhausted with the slightest hint of stubble clinging to his chin and his unwashed hair sticking up in various directions. Joshua wasn’t one to judge though. They were all neglecting themselves these days.

“How did it go?” he asked tentatively and Jihoon just shook his head.

“I don’t even want to …” he trailed off, raking his fingers over his face, before jabbing his thumb over his shoulder into the room he’d just left. “They want you in there.”

Joshua watched him trudging back down the corridor, heading straight for the parking lot where their manager was waiting with the company vehicle, and then he pushed onwards into the interview room where the police officer sat with a stern look on his face.

It wasn’t like one of those holding cell things with the one-way glass wall and the handcuffs on the table, and Joshua was thankful for that. It was more friendly here. There were sofas and cushions rather than hardened wood chairs and the walls were painted a very pale shade of blue.

“Hong Jisoo?”

Joshua nodded, taking a seat when he was invited to and clasping his hands in his lap so that he wouldn’t be too tempted to fiddle and fidget with whatever he could find. There was just something about a police station that made you nervous.

“I know this is a stressful time for you,” the officer said in a monotone, glancing down at the notes he was making. “But please try to answer all questions as truthfully and as accurately as you can. This interview is being recorded but if the case does proceed to court then any information you may have can be given anonymously if you so wish. May we begin?”

Joshua nodded again, eyeing the whirring black machine on the table in the corner of the room, a red light blinking as the microphones picked up every word that was spoken, and he had to remind himself that he was doing this for Jeonghan. So they could find the bastard that hurt him and make them pay.

“When did you first discover that Yoon Jeonghan was a homosexual?”

God, were all the questions going to sound that accusatory? It was awful. It was disgusting. He was making it sound like being gay was a crime, but then again, in this country, it practically was.

“We were in a dance practise,” he started, voice quivering ever so slightly but otherwise remaining stable. “And he kissed one of our staff members in front of all of us. Just … kind of out of the blue. Seungcheol – our leader – asked him later on if he was gay and he said yes. Cheol told me after that.”

The officer nodded solemnly, scribbling the testimony down on the paper in front of him, before raising his head and preparing for another inquiry.

“And what was your reaction, Jisoo-ssi?”

“I’m sorry?”

“To finding out that Yoon Jeonghan was gay. How did it make you feel?”

“Uhh …” Joshua blanked, eyes narrowing slightly in confusion. “I’m sorry, officer, but I don’t quite understand what this has to do with Han’s assault.”

If the officer was taken aback by the rebuttal then he didn’t show it. He just raised his eyebrows ever so slightly and waved his hand in an airy gesture of innocence.

“This is all part of the investigation, Jisoo-ssi. If you could just answer the question, please.”

Joshua had to shake himself slightly before he complied, “I was … I was shocked. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before then seeing as we’ve known each other for so long. But other than that, I was okay with it. I mean, why wouldn’t I be? It’s just who he is.”

Maybe his disliking to the seemingly irrelevant questions had shown through in his answer but he didn’t care. He wanted this officer to know that, no matter what Jeonghan’s preferences were when it came to his love life, he did not deserve what had happened to him.

“And do you think the rest of your bandmates felt the same way about this? Did anyone ever mention any displeasure or maybe any distaste that they held for this particular discovery of yours?”

Joshua blinked. He knew in the back of his mind what was going on here but he was trying to stay calm and focused. He could not lash out now, no matter how badly he may want to.

“No,” he answered definitively. “There was none of that. We didn’t feel any differently about Han after we found out than before. If anything, we were just worried that the rest of the company wouldn’t be so accepting.”

The officer was a robot. He wrote down his abbreviated little scrawls on the lined paper without even batting an eyelid. He had been conditioned and trained to have no soul so that he could manage the most disgusting and inhumane crimes known to man.

“So nobody felt any resentment towards Jeonghan-ssi? Nobody expressed any discomfort with being his roommate or anything similar?”

“Oh my God,” Joshua whispered. “Do you think that one of us did it? Do you really believe that one of us would rape the person who practically raised us for the past seven years?”

He could barely contain his fury. It was all he could do not to leap up off the sofa and storm right out the door, because that wouldn’t look suspicious at all. 

But the mere suggestion that he or one of his friends would commit a crime so awful – and especially towards one of their own – was nauseating.

“I’m sorry,” the police officer stated calmly. “If it appears that I’m accusing you, Jisoo-ssi, but I’m here to do one job and that is to find the person who assaulted Yoon Jeonghan. I do not know you or your bandmates so what you see as a preposterous inference is a really very relevant question for me. I hope you understand.”

Joshua breathed in slowly through his nose, clenching his fists so tightly that his fingernails sliced into the skin of his palms, but it effectively calmed the raging storm within him. 

This man was only doing his job. This man was trying to help Jeonghan. He, Joshua, was here to assist in that process.

“I apologise,” he sighed, dipping his head in a bow. “I’m just worried about my friend.”

“I understand,” the officer dismissed. “Are we okay to continue?”

Joshua nodded. 

“The staff member that Yoon Jeonghan kissed in front of you all, what’s his name?”

“Park Kwangho. He’s one of the junior members of our management team.”

“And what is your impression of him? Did you know he was in a relationship with Jeonghan-ssi?”

“No, I didn’t know they were together, but Kwangho-hyung has been around for a while now and he’s always been very friendly with us. He’s … He’s a nervous person, a little awkward, and we did suspect him of being gay when he first arrived so that wasn’t a surprise. And he’s been taking care of Jeonghan. They seem … very close.”

More nodding. More note-taking. More questions.

“So there is no reason for you to suspect that he might have been the one to hurt Jeonghan-ssi?”

Joshua couldn’t bite back his slightly bitter snort of mirth as he shook his head, “No. Absolutely not. Hyung’s … broad and big, sure, but he’s about as violent as a sloth. He loves Han. He’d never hurt him.”

“Is there anyone you can think of who may have been responsible for the assault?”

There was the big question. And the infuriatingly small answer was ‘no’. Joshua had spent hours lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, trying to come up with anyone he knew who would be capable of such evil, but it was hopeless.

And from the conversations he’d had with the others, it appeared that they were having the same problem.

“No,” he sighed in defeat. “I keep trying to think back to the last few weeks since he came out. I knew … I knew that something was happening and someone was scaring him, but he wouldn’t tell us who and I think we were just afraid to ask.”

The officer’s scribbling became a little more furious as he increased the speed with which he wrote.

“What led you to believe someone was terrorising him?”

“Han’s always been friendly, loud, bubbly, the typical sociable clown really.” 

He found himself beginning to tear up at the thought of what Jeonghan used to be and what he’d been reduced to now. 

“But recently, he’s been really drawn in and quiet. He wouldn’t talk to any of us and he spent all of his time in his room. He had panic attacks, he lashed out whenever someone would suddenly touch him, and one day, he just appeared with this massive bruise on his face.”

It was painful – physically painful – to talk about it. Jeonghan was so full of life all the time. That’s just who he was. 

But this monster – wherever he was – had snatched that sunshine from his body and left him in a hospital bed, nothing more than a broken, beaten shell. 

“And he never told you that he was being harassed or that anyone was threatening him?”

He hadn’t trusted them enough. Jeonghan was one of the most trusting people in this world. He would willingly throw himself off a building if Joshua said he would be there to catch him. Now that trust was gone and it wasn’t coming back. 

“No. He never said anything.”

He didn’t add that he doubted if Jeonghan would say anything ever again.


	14. 제 13 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Seokmin!  
> Happy birthday, Hansol!

Jeonghan was hospitalised for another twelve days before the doctors decided he could go home and, in that time, he had completely shut down.

They’d posed the idea of a rape kit to him and he’d flown into a hurricane of panic that had taken hours to come down from and since that moment, he had barely moved. He didn’t eat, he still hadn’t spoken and now he wouldn’t even acknowledge their presence at his bedside.

He was just a ghost. A shell. A shadow. 

And it didn’t look like he was ever coming back.

“Come on, hyung,” Mingyu muttered softly as he pulled the hospital blankets off Jeonghan’s bed and slipped his arms beneath his placid, pliant hyung. “It’s time to go home.”

He was dangerously light, and Mingyu had to resist the urge to tear up as he lifted that floppy lump of his lifeless best friend from the mattress and gently lowered him into the wheelchair Jun was standing behind, his arm now free from its sling.

“It’s cold outside,” Mingyu continued, folding the blanket once and then draping it over Jeonghan’s lap, tucking it in beneath his legs so that it would trap the warmth inside.

He received no response. Jeonghan didn’t look at him, didn’t speak to him, didn’t even blink as Jun wheeled him out of the room. 

His skin was paper white, nearing on grey, and all he ever did anymore was stare blankly at a fixed spot in front of him with eyes that had no more life within them.

An ambulance drove them right up to their front door, and Mingyu could barely even look at the paramedic’s softened expressions of sympathy as he hoisted Jeonghan up into his arms, shuffling slightly so his hyung could rest his head against his shoulder, and ploughed up the garden path towards the front door.

He could feel the others’ eyes on him as he stepped over the threshold and toed off his shoes but he kept walking, taking the stairs two at a time so he could get Jeonghan to his room as quickly as possible.

His arms should have been getting tired at carrying such deadened weight, but they weren’t and that was almost as terrifying as the fact that Jeonghan didn’t even seem to be alive anymore.

“Here you go, hyung,” he whispered, ever so gently placing his priceless burden down on the bed they’d prepared for him with the hot water bottle between the sheets and the softest blanket money could buy topping the covers.

Mingyu tucked him in, pulling the duvet up to his chest and making sure the pillows were in a position that wouldn’t cause his neck to cramp up while he lay there. 

He did everything he could to ensure Jeonghan was as comfortable as possible in a body he no longer thought of as his own but he might as well have done nothing for all the response his hyung showed him.

“Get some sleep,” he told him pathetically, squeezing his hand before flicking the lights off and closing the bedroom door behind him.

“The doctor says it’s catatonia,” Jun was telling Seungcheol and Joshua when Mingyu found them sitting at the kitchen table together, staring into the coffee cups without really seeing the muddish brown liquid sloshing around within. “It’s a coping mechanism for dealing with the trauma.” 

“His body’s shutting down because his mind doesn’t know how to process what’s happened to him,” Seungcheol nodded, scrubbing his face with his hands. “I’ve done some research.”

As Joshua spoke, Mingyu wondered how he was even still conscious as the bags beneath his eyes looked heavy enough to weigh down the entire world. “Will he come out of it? I mean, he can’t stay like that forever, right?”

No one spoke. No one wanted to offer up the only answer that seemed to make sense: that Jeonghan would talk to them when he was ready but that probably wouldn’t be until they caught the person who’d done this to him, and the forensics exam had been inconclusive.

Life didn’t feel like it was worth living.

There was something about the fact that it was Jeonghan. Something that made their situation even more unbearable than it could have been if it was any of the others.

Jeonghan was special. Jeonghan was like a parent to so many of them, always inquiring after their health and their happiness, putting their needs before his own and forever waiting with his arms open in case anybody needed a hug.

He was never judgemental, he never asked questions, he just waited and listened and then did everything he could to help.

Jeonghan was special because he was both their mother and their baby. Mingyu had never felt anywhere near as protective of anyone as he felt about Jeonghan. He would tear the universe to pieces if it meant keeping him safe, only now he was too late.

Jeonghan held this team together. They wouldn’t exist without him. And now someone had taken him from them. No, worse than that: they had sucked out his essence and left his beaten and defiled body in their care.

He was gone in every way but the physical one. It was like they had a corpse lying in the room just above their heads.

“We’re advised to keep talking to him,” Seungcheol was saying when Mingyu came back down to earth. “Keep telling him that he’s safe and he’s loved and that he can move at his own pace. He’s eating when coaxed but we can’t force it down his throat. It will wreck his trust.”

“The nurse said that,” Jun bobbed his head in agreement. “But if he refuses to swallow anything for an extended period of time then we have to bring him back in and they’ll probably give him a feeding tube so he doesn’t starve to death.”

“It’s like taking care of a baby,” Mingyu whispered, unaware that he’d spoken aloud until the others looked up at him in shock. “Well, it is, isn’t it? He can’t talk, he can’t walk, he can’t feed himself … he’s practically regressed back to an infant.”

“He’s not an infant,” Joshua pushed, a slight edge of resentment in his tone at the suggestion. “He’s still Han and he’s going to go back to being Han. He just needs time to get over this.”

“He’s not going to get over it!”

Mingyu hadn’t meant to shout. He was tired, he was frustrated and he was upset and it all bubbled together into one big vat of confusion that finally spilled over the rim.

“He was raped,” he cried into the stunned silence. “That’s life-changing. He’s not ever going to be the same again even if he makes it through this. We have … absolutely no idea what he’s going through right now. The pain, the fear, the shame. Nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, that’s his life now and we let it happen.”

“Mingyu …”

“No. He was scared. We all saw it and we did nothing.”

“Mingyu, what was there for us to do? He wouldn’t talk to …”

“We. Did. Nothing,” Mingyu spat, shoving himself out of his chair so violently that the wooden legs scraped across the floor and storming out of the room with his fists clenching handfuls of his own hair.

He’d read about sexual assault and the post-traumatic stress that almost always followed, and it broke his heart to know that Jeonghan was locked up somewhere inside his head with no way of escaping the memories that undoubtedly plagued his every moment, both conscious and not.

He wondered if his hyung wanted something – needed something – but couldn’t say it. What if he was starving but was unable to ask for food? What if he wanted to shower but couldn’t stand for long enough to have one? Rape survivors liked to shower, Mingyu knew that now.

“Hey, hyung,” he greeted softly as he pushed open the bedroom door and turned on the lights.

Jeonghan was exactly where he’d left him, lying flat on his back in the centre of the bed with his blank, lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. Mingyu tiptoed over and sat down on the edge of the mattress, taking his hyung’s hand.

His clothes smelled. His skin, too. The bed covers were fresh but if he was going to be lying here hour after hour, day after day, then they would start to produce their own pungent odour that would eventually drive them all crazy.

“I’m going to run you a bath, hyung,” Mingyu told him, slowly and steadily to be sure Jeonghan understood. “Just remember that you can talk to me if you want to, okay?”

He stood up without waiting for an answer and went to the closet, digging out some clean clothes which he deposited in the en suite bathroom before the plug buried itself in the drain and the taps started to spew a torrent of warm water.

Mingyu wasn’t quite sure how he was going to do this. They’d all seen each other naked before but this was different. Very different. He knew Jeonghan would be uncomfortable, possibly scared, but he also knew that his hyung needed to bathe. It would make him feel more at home.

He measured the bath water’s temperature and after deeming it satisfactory, he staunched the flow and retreated back into the bedroom, pulling Jeonghan’s limp body against his chest and hefting him off the bed.

“You’ll feel much better after you’ve had a wash,” he commented as he sat his hyung down on the closed toilet seat. “It can’t feel nice to still be in those pyjamas after so long.”

He crouched in front of Jeonghan, carefully taking a hold of his chin and trying to lift his head, but even when his older brother’s face was pointed directly at him, his eyes remained unfocused and distant. Like he was in some kind of trance.

“I’m just going to take your shirt off, okay?”

The second Mingyu’s fingers closed around the hem of the filthy T-Shirt, Jeonghan’s hand shot out and fastened a bruising grip on his dongsaeng’s wrist. 

The spontaneous movement had the younger boy jumping in fright, almost falling backwards onto the floor before he managed to regain his composure.

“Okay,” he soothed, putting his free hand on top of Jeonghan’s, partly to bring comfort and partly to lessen the pressure that was tightening around his radius. “Okay, hyung. I won’t take your clothes off. I promise.”

He continued to kneel there, watching Jeonghan’s face for any reaction but the boy continued to stare into the abyss even as his grip began to loosen on Mingyu’s wrist. But now they appeared to have reached an impasse.

Jeonghan didn’t want Mingyu removing his clothes, and that was perfectly understandable, but it was going to be relatively difficult to proceed without that consent.

Then Jeonghan moved.

It was very slow, as though it caused him a great deal of pain, and his expression remained sphynx-like, but his hand let go of his little brother’s arm and reached for his shirt, taking hold of the hem in a grip so tight that his fingernails started to turn white.

“Do you …” Mingyu started nervously, unsure whether or not what he thought was happening was actually happening. “Do you want to do it yourself?”

A nod. Miniscule and weak but still recognisable. It was the biggest reaction any of them had managed to procure in days.

“Can you do it yourself? You’re not going to fall?”

No response this time. Not even a blink.

“Do you want me to wait outside?”

Another nod, and Mingyu felt his heart swelling with both pride and apprehension. He had an awful premonition of stepping outside the door, hearing the lock slide home and then breaking it down to find that Jeonghan had drowned himself in the bath.

But they were supposed to be giving this boy his control. Showing him that he still had control.

“Okay,” Mingyu conceded. “I’m going to be just outside, alright, hyung? I don’t want you to lock the door but I promise I’m not going to come in. You take your time and if I call your name then just knock on the side of the bath, okay? Just so I know that you’re alright.”

There was no reply and Mingyu was so reluctant to leave him in a room that was filled with so many dangers, but this was huge progress. Huge, huge, huge progress. They couldn’t afford to erase it.

Because Jeonghan had just shown them that he was still in there.


	15. 제 14 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you! Go read my collab story with MinYun! :)

“Shit,” Seungcheol hissed, withdrawing his hand from the stove and lunging for the sink so he could plunge his fingers beneath the icy waterfall and neutralise the burn that was already blistering over the top of his finger.

It hurt, but that wasn’t the reason he started to cry. All he felt was hopelessness and failure and devastation. He was a terrible hyung, he was a terrible leader and he was a terrible friend because he couldn’t seem to find a way to rescue Jeonghan from the shell of deadened flesh he’d become.

So he turned his back to the kitchen counter, leaving the tap running as he sank down onto the tiled floor and buried his face in his burned hands. And he let himself cry for the first time in the last two weeks.

The doorbell rang but it took him several moments to gather enough composure to get up, swiping at the embarrassing amount of moisture on his face before padding down the hallway and opening up the door to see a familiar face on the other side.

“Hey, hyung,” he greeted, unable to muster any kind of welcoming tone. “I was wondering when you were going to stop by. Come on in.”

He stepped aside, allowing Kwangho over the threshold and into the kitchen where he started a fresh pot of coffee without realising they’d completely run out of milk.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Cheol,” the manager started. “But you look like shit.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get over here. I had to do my interview with the police and then inform the management team and … I’m sorry, Cheol. I didn’t mean to leave you in the lurch.”

Seungcheol just nodded absently, staring at the water bubbling in the kettle as he waited for the temperature to reach boiling point. If he had the energy, he would have dismissed Kwangho’s apology. He knew it must have been hell for him, knowing his boyfriend was suffering but being unable to come over and hold him, but he was too tired to utter a single unnecessary syllable.

“Where’s everyone else?” Kwangho questioned, leaning backwards on the kitchen counter. “Where’s Han?”

The kettle made a soft clicking noise and Seungcheol pulled it from its cradle to fill the empty mugs he’d set on the surface, watching as the water filled them up and turned a brownish green from the teabags.

“I told Shua to take them to the studio,” he grunted in response. “They needed to get out of here for a bit. Han’s upstairs. I’m pretty sure he’s asleep right now but he might just be pretending so he doesn’t have to interact with us.”

“Has he said anything?” Kwangho pushed as he accepted the milk-free coffee from Seungcheol’s trembling hand. “About who did this to him or why?”

The leader just shook his head, staring down into his dirty brown brew with his lip curled in disgust at the thought of ingesting it. He couldn’t even begin to estimate how much coffee he’d drunk in the past few days in his desperate mission to stay awake for as long as possible so he wouldn’t have to see Jeonghan’s bloody and broken body in his dreams.

“He hasn’t said anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a word.”

His eyes were tearing up too soon for him to catch the ever so slight smirk on Kwangho’s lips, and before he knew what was happening, he was full-on sobbing in the middle of his kitchen. The kind of sobbing that had him clutching at his chest, shoulders heaving and throat blocked from his own mucous.

“I’m so tired, hyung,” he choked pathetically as Kwangho rested a comforting hand on his arm. “I’m so tired and I know I don’t deserve to cry when he’s the one who … got hurt like that, but I … It’s killing me, hyung. Seeing him like this and not knowing how to help him … It’s killing me.”

He didn’t even have the peace of mind to feel embarrassed when Kwangho wrapped his arms around him and he clung to the taller man’s shirt with his own snot-stained fists. He was sleep-deprived, starved, traumatised and if he felt this awful, he couldn’t even imagine how badly Jeonghan suffered every time he breathed.

“Cheol,” Kwangho finally soothed, pulling back from the embrace and taking Seungcheol by the shoulders so he could look him in the eye. “You’re sick, okay? You’re not well. You need sleep and you need it now.”

Seungcheol opened his mouth, already formulating a protest, but Kwangho beat him to it.

“I’ll take care of Han, okay? But if you keep pushing yourself like this then you’re going to end up in the hospital and then you’ll be of no help to anyone. Tell me what I need to do and then go lie down and let me do it.”

Seungcheol was tired. So, so tired. And Kwangho had been the one to help Jeonghan come to terms with who he was. They had been dating. They had been in love. He’d seen the kisses and the touches and the hugs. If he couldn’t do it himself then he wouldn’t want anybody other than Kwangho to take his place.

“He … I haven’t woken him yet,” he croaked, eyes moving slightly erratically in his sleep-deprived state. “Usually, we just turn the lights on so they wake him up and we don’t have to touch him because that freaks him out. Then we run him a bath and pick out his clothes and take him into the bathroom. He can’t walk so you’ll have to carry him but make sure you’re gentle and you keep telling him what’s happening so he doesn’t panic.”

He stopped to take a breath, unaware that he’d been holding it throughout his explanation. He hadn’t realised just how many allowances Jeonghan needed in order to prevent a meltdown or a flash back or just one of those moments where he blacked out.

“What else?” Kwangho prompted.

“Tell him not to lock the door and then wait outside. Don’t leave the bedroom in case he slips or something but also don’t go in unless you think something’s wrong with him. You’ll be able to hear him get out and get dressed and then go in and help him shave but make sure to be gentle so you don’t cut him and then just take him back to bed. He’ll probably go straight back to sleep so you don’t need to stay with him for any longer.”

“Okay,” Kwangho nodded, snaking an arm around Seungcheol’s shoulder and guiding him to the living room sofa. “I’ve got it, Cheol. Don’t worry. You just lie down now and go to sleep.”

Seungcheol couldn’t even resist if he wanted to. The moment his butt hit the cushions, he was already half under and when Kwangho helped him lie down, the darkness was already eating away at him. He closed his eyes and was gone in seconds.

~~~~~~~~~~~

They thought he’d gone crazy. They thought he’d lost his mind and that was exactly what Jeonghan had intended when he allowed himself to slip into this realm of blankness.

The fact that he was scared out of his wits and unable to order the thousands of emotions battling for dominance inside his head was only one of the reasons he was refusing to interact with the rest of the world. The other was that he simply didn’t want to.

As long as they believed he couldn’t talk, he wouldn’t have to. No questions to answer, no police interviews to give, no painfully-forced small talk to endure. This – faking catatonia – was the only way he could be sure not to say anything about what he’d been through that day in Jihoon’s studio.

_Not a word, Angel._

Because if he did let something slip – anything at all – then Kwangho would hurt him or his family. Or both. And he couldn’t be hurt like that again. He couldn’t. He would rather die but that wasn’t a possibility. He wasn’t leaving his friends to potentially suffer the same torture that had been inflicted upon him.

So he lay here in this bed, letting them feed him, medicate him, do virtually everything for him because switching off was the only sure-fire way he knew how to protect himself from the threat that was lurking in the shadows every time he closed his eyes.

The one thing he did not let them do was be around when he took his clothes off. He wouldn’t let them see the bruises that were splattered over his chest and hips and thighs and he would never let them see the hickeys and the fingernail marks imprinted into his skin.

They were just the mark of Kwangho, seemingly everlasting proof of what had been done and what had every possibility of being done again if that monster managed to muscle his way into the dorm under the pretence of playing Jeonghan’s loving boyfriend.

Every day was the same.

He woke up at the crack of dawn, drenched in sweat and trembling from the aftershock of the nightmares, and whoever had fallen asleep on the floor beside his bed would pick themselves up, rub the dust from their eyes and talk him back to calmness.

Then they would fill the tub, carry him into the bathroom and leave him on the closed toilet seat with a set of fresh clothes they’d picked out for him. He would bathe himself, dress himself and then they’d come back in to shave his face, plucking the tiny sprouts of stubble from his chin.

Then someone else would come in, allowing for the previous carer to take their own shower and change their own clothes, and he would have to eat the food that they gave him. They would talk about something falsely cheerful, trying to lure him back from the void he’d allowed to swallow him whole, and the rest of the day would pass in silence.

It was hell. He was trapped inside his own mind, unable to move or breathe without fearing punishment. He saw Kwangho in every face, felt him in every touch, experienced that day every time he closed his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

But he was safe. The others would protect him now. They’d promised.

“Angel?”

They’d … They’d promised.

“Are you awake, baby?”

It was just a dream. It was just another nightmare. A flashback. It wasn’t real.

“I missed you so much.”

Real.


	16. 제 15 장

Jeonghan’s entire body jolted with terror as he tried to leap up from the bed but there was an arm across his chest before he had time, pinning him to the mattress as Kwangho’s free hand threaded sausage fingers through his hair.

“Shhh,” he hushed, brushing a finger against Jeonghan’s lips. “Seungcheol’s sleeping downstairs. We don’t want to wake him now, do we?”

Jeonghan felt like his eyes were going to bulge out of his head. His heart must have been going at least 120bpm. His chest was tightening even though Kwangho wasn’t pressing that hard, and he was milliseconds away from having a panic attack.

“Do we, Angel?”

It was a question. Answer the question. Answer it now or he’s going to hurt you.

Jeonghan shook his head violently, eyes still wide and hands bunched in the bedsheets at his side as he stared up at the beast looming over him with a cold, sultry smile on his hideous face. Seungcheol was downstairs, he’d said. Why had Seungcheol let him come up here?

“I’ve heard you haven’t been talking, Angel. Is that right?”

He nodded, his movements minute and terrified and the muscles in his legs were twisting into burning knots but he couldn’t move. He was paralysed, not by the arm in his chest, but by the eyes that stared down at him with nothing but lust glistening in those inky wells.

“You’ve been so good, Angel. Keeping quiet for me. So good. I think you deserve a reward.”

No. No. No. No. No. No.

“Come on, then. Seungcheol told me I need to run you a bath.”

No. No. No. No. No. No. Scream. Scream right now. Wake Seungcheol. Get him up here. Get him to save you. Don’t let it happen again. It can’t happen again. You won’t survive. You’ll die. Or you’ll kill yourself. Don’t let him hurt you again. Scream. Scream now. Now!

Kwangho’s fingers tightened in a loop around Jeonghan’s wrist and he was wrenched out of bed, his unpractised legs failing under his weight but Kwangho was there to catch him before he fell. Of course, Kwangho was there. He was always there.

Scream. He had to scream. Scream or he would be dead.

But he couldn’t. Kwangho had his arms looped around his waist and he was dragging him towards the bathroom, oblivious to his victim’s feet struggling against the floor and scrabbling at the restraints around his body, and he couldn’t scream.

No sound was coming out.

Kwangho had already filled the tub, right to the rim and Jeonghan opened his mouth to … do something, say anything, beg, plead, shout, yelp, but his vocal cords had gone too long without motion and now his voice was nothing more than a forgotten canary down in the coalmines.

Instead, he fought. He kicked out, his bare foot catching his tormentor’s knee and Kwangho went down with a pained grunt, clutching at his injured leg with his face twisted in pain as Jeonghan scrambled for the door.

“Bitch …” came the hiss just before a hand clamped around his ankle and his foundations were yanked out from underneath him, sending him slamming face first into the floor. “After everything I’ve done for you …”

He was pulling. Kwangho was pulling on his ankle, reeling him back towards him and Jeonghan was clawing at the ground, fingernails splintering, but he wasn’t strong enough. He had never been and he never would be strong enough to fight the nightmare he had allowed into his head all those weeks ago when he’d kissed him in the dance studio.

“Ungrateful, ugly little …”

Whatever word followed, Jeonghan didn’t hear it. Kwangho’s hand fisted in his hair and his upper body was ripped off the ground, forcing him into a kneeling position and causing his still-healing ribs to scream in pained protest. He reached up to try and loosen the grip but nothing helped.

Nothing was going to help. No one was coming to help. And he still couldn’t scream.

“To think, I was about to reward you for keeping your mouth shut.”

The grip tightened. Jeonghan’s face contorted with agony. His fingers scratched at the hand in his hair. His throat emitted several strangled cries of terror but it wasn’t loud enough. A sound like that would never travel all the way down the stairs and wake Seungcheol.

“When will you learn some respect?”

He didn’t even register the wall of the tub against his stomach before his head was thrust forward and his face was submerged in the lukewarm water.

Adrenaline and pure instinct to survive engaged and Jeonghan fought like his life depended on it. Because now it did. He kicked and bucked and twisted but his body was too frail and Kwangho continued to hold him under the water with just one hand.

He was drowning. His mouth was closed but any minute now, the pressure in his head was going to reach breaking point and he would have to part his lips. The water would gush into him, filling up his lungs, choking him, suffocating him. It was a slow and agonisingly painful way to die.

The hand gave another tug that must have ripped several hairs from Jeonghan’s scalp but at last he surfaced, gasping for breath and relishing in the cool sensation of air on his face. His hair wasn’t released and his neck was pulled backwards at an excruciating angle but at least he could breathe.

“This is how much I love you, Angel,” came the whisper in his ear. “Enough that I’d go through all of this just so you would finally understand that we’re meant to be together.”

Jeonghan’s eyes were rolling, mouth still gaping and he barely had time to close it before his head was back under, water splashing over the rim of the tub and soaking into his sweatpants as he continued to kneel on the floor.

He had to fight. He had to survive. But … Maybe not.

Kwangho wanted him alive so he could continue to abuse him and violate him and hurt him and Jeonghan was just going to let it happen. He wasn’t strong enough to resist and this man had cast some kind of curse to prevent him from ever reporting his torture.

Maybe dying wouldn't be so bad. It would mean escape. It would mean Kwangho had lost.

Dying actually … It actually seemed kind of peaceful.

But, of course, his escape was torn from him one final time as he was heaved back out of the water and forced to draw breath, starving lungs desperately gorging on the oxygen they couldn’t survive without.

Kwangho released the hold on his hair and his body just liquified, crumpling onto the sodden bathroom floor with the water soaking through his clothes and clinging to his skin in crystallised droplets. He lay there, panting, in the same stuff that had nearly killed him.

“You’ve learned now, right, Angel?”

He was wheezing, dying, asphyxiating, but still he managed to nod. Anything for this man. Anything to stop this man. Just anything … Anything … Anything …

“And not a word, you hear me, Angel? Not a word.”

Jeonghan had no idea if he’d managed to nod a second time but he realised he must have done when Kwangho slipped a hand around the back of his neck and levered him into a sitting position. He was surprisingly gentle, a dramatic contrast to what he’d been just a few seconds previously but Jeonghan wasn’t complaining.

Jeonghan wasn’t doing much of anything but reminding himself to breathe.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He closed his eyes. He let Kwangho do whatever it is he wanted to do because he was not going back under that water. He was not going to drown in his own bathtub with his best friend fast asleep downstairs. Why was his best friend still fast asleep downstairs?

Kwangho dried him off and changed his clothes, Jeonghan making his body limp and pliable so there would be no reason for any more violence. And when that brute of a man picked him up, set him on the toilet seat and started lathering shaving cream over the lower portion of his face, he didn’t even open his eyes.

He was done. He wanted to die. Kwangho was whispering those lustful words of his and he was touching in places that he should not be touching but Jeonghan was done. That was the only word for it: just … done.

“You know that I love you, don’t you, Angel?” Kwangho cooed as he dragged the razor across the last smidgen of Jeonghan’s stubbled chin and dropped the utensil into the sink where it made a soft splash in the soapy water. “God knows I’ve done all I can to show you.”

He kissed him. He took his face in both his hands, leaned forwards and kissed him, but Jeonghan still didn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t. He never wanted to see that face or those hands or those eyes again, for as long as he lived.

He was done. He wanted to die.

“I should get you back to bed,” his abuser concluded, patting the rest of Jeonghan’s face dry before gathering him up in his arms. Jeonghan didn’t resist. “To be honest, I’m surprised Seungcheol slept through all that unnecessary noise you were making. But then again, he did look half dead when I got here.”

Don’t react. Don’t show him your tears. Don’t show him your fear or your pain. Don’t let him know he beat you. Except he did, didn’t he? Who are you kidding? Of course, he beat you. You know it, he knows it and soon enough, the rest of the world will know it too.

“My perfect little angel.”

He was climbing into bed with him. He was touching him. It was happening. Again. And Seungcheol wasn’t even twenty feet away. He should have heard. Jeonghan should have screamed.

Jeonghan did nothing. 


	17. 제 16 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the climax, people!

Seungkwan was lying on the floor beside Jeonghan’s bed when he heard the first signs of a nightmare.

They’d set up a mattress and a few pillows so they could keep an eye on their second eldest throughout the night, just in case he needed something seeing as he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – call out, but it was drastically uncomfortable and virtually impossible to fall asleep on.

Something had changed in the last week. He couldn’t quite identify what but it was clear as day to anyone who paid attention that Jeonghan wasn’t getting any better. And now he was getting worse, spiralling deeper into his own trauma.

No one knew why, but now he cried at the drop of a hat. He fought whenever somebody tried to touch him, he didn’t even raise his head when they spoke to him, he refused every sliver of food they tried to give him. 

It was like he had already died inside a body that insisted on continuing to breathe even though its spirit was no longer there. 

And now it was forcing Jeonghan to relive the assault again.

Seungkwan was up off the floor on the first whimper, hearing his hyung shift about on the sheets as he stumbled towards the bedside table, hands reaching out to stop him from colliding with something in the darkness. 

He found his target and felt upwards for the lamp, clicking the required button so that the room was illuminated in a dull yellowish glow.

Jeonghan’s head was rocking from side to side, his face and neck drenched in sweat and his eyes leaking tears even though they were screwed shut in unconsciousness. It was textbook. The exact same thing had occurred just over four hours ago.

Seungkwan hated that he was so calm. He hated that he had grown accustomed to seeing his big brother in such a state of terror that if somebody laid a hand on him at this very moment, there was a very real possibility that he might have a heart attack.

He turned on the fan, ensuring that a torrent of cold air was blowing on his hyung’s perspiring body before he took the plastic bowl they kept beside the bed and hurried into the bathroom so he could fill it with cold water.

He just worked on autopilot. All of them did. Like they’d been trained.

Waking Jeonghan would be a massive mistake. Seokmin had found that out the hard way when he’d tried to break his friend out of the nightmare and instead had only managed to trap him in some kind of limbo between asleep and awake as he screamed and cried until he passed out.

So they just had to wait. Wait for him to ride it out and ensure that they were there to cool and calm him when he finally came back to reality.

“I’m here,” Seungkwan murmured under his breath as he perched on the edge of the bed, being careful not to touch Jeonghan but at the same time trying to ensure that he didn’t roll off the mattress. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It was probably a good ten minutes before Jeonghan’s battle with the bedsheets started to slow and his head lolled into its final position against the pillow, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and cheeks stained with tear tracks as he settled back into a fitful slumber.

“There you go,” Seungkwan told him, dipping the flannel in the bowl of water he’d set on the table and using it to mop up the sweat that was rolling down his hyung’s throat in rivulets. “You’re back now. You’re safe, hyung. I promise.”

He adjusted the fan to make sure it was pointing in exactly the right direction before he carefully untangled the dampened sheets from his hyung’s legs and dumped them on the floor where they would be out of the way and Jeonghan couldn’t mistake them for some kind of restraints.

“Someday this will get better,” Seungkwan whispered as he went back to his gentle mopping, truly having no idea whether or not Jeonghan could hear him. “But I don’t know how to help you. If I could take away the pain, hyung, then I would. But I just don’t know how.”

He wished more than anything that he could lie down beside him, pull him against his chest and hold him through the night terrors and the flashbacks but that was the thing about this kind of assault. Sometimes, physical contact was the very last thing the victim could cope with.

So instead, Seungkwan grabbed a chair from by the wall and carried it over, not wanting to drag it in case he disturbed Jeonghan’s much-needed sleep. He set it down beside the bed and sat there for the rest of the night, holding his hyung’s hand as his head slowly started to loll onto his shoulder and he succumbed to his own unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hyung? Can I talk to you?”

Soonyoung jumped, only now realising that he had probably been staring blankly out of the window for about ten minutes, and saw Minghao loitering nervously on the stairs behind him with an expression that screamed ‘uncomfortable’. 

“Sure,” he grunted, his voice gruff from lack of use as he took a step towards the kitchen door and closed it, shutting off the sound of all the others eating breakfast. “What do you need?”

“I …” Minghao started, face screwed up as though the conflict within him was starting to become overwhelming. “I don’t … I don’t like saying this so please don’t think that I want any of it. I … I just think that it might … you know … be for the best.”

Soonyoung raised his eyebrows and Minghao sighed in defeat, his chin dropping onto his chest and his hands coming up to rake themselves through his bleached hair.

“I … I just … I know it’s … I can’t tell Cheol-hyung but … I …”

“Hao,” Soonyoung interrupted, his patience wearing thin from the extensive exhaustion they’d all been suffering from recently. “Just spit it out. What do you want to say?”

He hadn’t meant for the words to come out so harsh and cruel, but it seemed to finally do the trick and shocked Minghao into spilling his confession with his eyes wide, his teeth biting down on his lip and his hands picking at a loose thread in his sweater.

“I think Jeonghan-hyung needs to be admitted to a psychiatric facility.”

There was a long stretch of silence where Soonyoung just stared at him, unable to accept the proposition he’d just heard but at the same time struggling to find any reason to contradict him.

Jeonghan was sick and he wasn’t getting any better. He was actually getting worse. Whatever they were doing for him wasn’t working and sooner or later, they would have to accept that they were out of their depth in caring for a boy whose mental stability had crumbled to dust.

“We don’t know what we’re doing,” Minghao continued breathlessly, his eyes starting to glisten with unshed tears. “He’s not responding, he’s not eating and if something doesn’t change very soon, he’s probably going to try to kill himself. I know that it’s horrible and I would never want to send him to a place like that but we can’t do this anymore.”

“I know,” Soonyoung whispered, more to himself than anyone else as he stared down at the floor without really seeing the patterns in the carpet.

They had all been thinking the same thing. Apparently Minghao was the only one brave enough to finally say it.

“I’ll talk to Seungcheol-hyung,” he continued, reaching out to squeeze the younger boy’s shoulder, still without raising his head. “You did the right thing, Hao, so don’t feel guilty, okay?”

Minghao still looked conflicted and regretful but he managed a small nod and a timid smile in an attempt to show his gratitude at Soonyoung’s understanding. It was a prospect they knew they were going to have to face at some point and there was only so long that they could keep denying it.

A creak from the top of the stairs had them both glancing up and Soonyoung felt his jaw drop to the floor in pure shock at what he was seeing.

“Go gently now. It’s okay. Take your time,” Seokmin was saying as he slowly descended the stairs backwards, glancing behind him every so often to ensure he didn’t miss his footing and fall. “There’s no rush. I’ve got you.”

Both his hands were outstretched and Jeonghan was clinging to them, his legs trembling so violently that Soonyoung wondered how he was still standing but then he saw his hyung take a step onto the first stair, fingernails digging into Seokmin’s palms, and he felt pride and elation and the most extreme happiness.

Jeonghan was walking.

He was terrified, his heartrate was way too fast and he still couldn’t muster up the courage to raise his head and make eye contact, but even Jeonghan could see that this was progress. He didn’t have to talk, they weren’t going to question him. He was still safe but now he was out.

Out of that room where the smell was starting to suffocate him and into the warm lights and the smell of freshly cooked bacon from the frying pan in the kitchen downstairs.

He stumbled his way down the stairs, quivering like a leaf and constantly convinced that Kwangho was about to appear from nowhere and tackle him to the ground, but Seokmin was there every step of the way with soothing words and supportive encouragement.

The moment his feet touched the hallway carpet, Minghao was on his other side and he flinched instinctively before remembering that the arm around his waist belonged to his little brother, and his little brother would never – ever – hurt him.

“Nearly there,” Seokmin murmured, squeezing Jeonghan’s hand in reassurance as his knees almost buckled. “And then you can have all the bacon you want.”

He didn’t really want bacon. It was greasy and fatty and he couldn’t stand the thought of it in his mouth but he’d barely eaten since the night Kwangho had infiltrated his safe space and he couldn’t deny the way his stomach screamed for sustenance.

Just a few more steps and he felt the cool kitchen tiles beneath his toes. Even though his head was still resolutely bowed, he could sense the others freezing in whatever they were doing so they could stare at him before seeming to realise their lack of subtlety and resuming their movements.

“Here,” came Minghao’s voice from his left and then there was a chair that he could sink into, his wobbly legs sighing in gratitude as they were relieved of their burden. “There you go.”

No one addressed his presence. No one made a song and dance out of it. No one rushed to hug him or dropped to their knees in front of him to grab his hands and grin up at his pale, sunken face. No one made any acknowledgement at all and that was exactly what Jeonghan needed.

When Seokmin had ripped the blankets off the bed and pulled him to his feet, he’d said that Jeonghan needed to find a way to filter himself back into reality. He needed everything to be as normal as it could possibly be for somebody experiencing such intense post-traumatic stress.

They were giving him that.

Conversation started up, sounding slightly forced at first but then filtering into normalcy as the others got into their flow and within moments, the atmosphere in the kitchen was returned to what it had been before Jeonghan’s very dramatic and unstable entrance.

“Have something to drink,” Seokmin commanded gently, bringing a glass of water to Jeonghan’s hand and helping him lift it towards his face.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it himself because he could but his mind was still trying to connect the dots between his brain and his neurons, meaning his movements were grossly uncoordinated and he probably would have dropped the cup had Seokmin not been there to secure it.

Mingyu gave a stifled yelp and instinct had Jeonghan’s head shooting up for the first time in weeks, causing a electric twinge to fire up and down his stiff spinal cord, but all he was met with was the sight of his tallest dongsaeng hopping about and trying to locate the grape Hansol had dropped down his shirt.

Jeonghan hadn’t realised how badly he’d missed watching them laugh. Maybe one day he’d be able to join in again. But not today. Not yet. He wasn’t ready.

“Is Chan still not up?” Seungcheol questioned, his eyes flicking unintentionally towards Jeonghan as he called out over the chatter. “Didn’t somebody wake him?”

“Oh, no, he’s at the studio,” Seungkwan chipped in from the other side of the kitchen, engrossed in spreading as much jam as possible on his slice of toast. “He got called in super early.”

Jeonghan’s ears pricked up. His shoulders stiffened. 

One thing he’d always prided himself on was knowing when something was wrong with one of his younger brothers or with Seungcheol. And his spiny senses were on the highest alert at this very moment.

“Why?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Seungkwan mused, still distracted by his toast. “I think the recording that he did got deleted or something like that. Kwangho-hyung said it would only take a minute.”

Kwangho.

Kwangho?

He hadn’t seen Kwangho since that morning where he’d nearly drowned in his own bath.

He’d thought he’d forgotten him.

He’d thought he’d finally realised how disgusting and used up he was.

Kwangho.

Kwangho.

Kwangho had Chan.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

NO!


	18. 제 17 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy leap day, everybody!
> 
> There were a lot of theories for what would happen in this chapter but nobody predicted this :)

Jeonghan was out the door before anyone had a chance to yell his name.

He didn’t bother with shoes or a coat because there just wasn’t time. The car keys were on the cabinet in the hallway and he didn’t even think twice before grabbing them and bolting out into the driveway, still wearing his pyjamas and wheezing from the barely-healed rib fractures.

Kwangho had taken everything for him: his health, his happiness, his dignity, his faith in the human race. But one thing he was adamant about from the very first day was that he would never – never ever, ever – take a single one of his members.

His body was frail and fragile and malnourished. He knew he would be no good in a fight but he was perfectly willing to strangle Kwangho with his bare hands if that’s what it took to get him as far away from Chan as possible.

For almost a month, he had lain in that bed and dreamed about the sweet release of death. The mere idea of confronting Kwangho, of ever even being in the same room as that monster again, was enough to send him spiralling into a vortex of terror and panic that took nearly an hour to come back down from.

But this was different. Kwangho had broken that hold he’d had on Jeonghan the second he decided to set his sights on Chan.

He was speeding. He knew that. He may have even run a red light in his panic to get to the studio as fast as humanly possible, his feet scratched and bleeding from the way they’d scraped against the gas pedals, and he was terrified.

But he was also angry as hell. And that was the emotion he’d chosen to focus on.

He’d let Kwangho have his body. He’d let Kwangho do whatever he wanted to because he’d believed that, as long as he was the play thing, he would be keeping the others out of harm’s way. He’d been willing to give everything to that man.

Everything except Chan.

He didn’t let himself have time to think anything through. The moment he pulled the car to a stop, he was stumbling towards the building and the moment he was through the doors, he was sprinting up the stairs.

Kwangho couldn’t have Chan.

Kwangho wouldn’t have Chan.

Jeonghan wouldn’t allow it.

Seungkwan had said they were recording something. That seemed to be Kwangho’s cover story for luring his prey into a false sense of security before he pounced, and if Jeonghan was right, they would be in the same studio where this whole horror story began.

The hallways were virtually empty but he didn’t give a second glance to the few people who crossed his path as he dashed down the hallways, barefoot, sweaty and terrified. His ribs were screaming, his legs were cramping up but he didn’t care.

Kwangho couldn’t have Chan.

The door to the studio had a neon red light burning above it, spelling out the words RECORDING to discourage unwanted visitors that would potentially disturb the sessions but Jeonghan ignored it. This particular session was being disturbed no matter what the consequences.

He wrenched it open and practically threw himself inside, panicked eyes trying to take in everything that was going on before he could figure out what his first move would be.

There was nobody sitting at the controls but the console was on, dozens of tiny lights glinting beneath the keys to indicate somebody had been tending to it mere minutes ago. Jeonghan turned his head and saw the glass recording booth, soundproof walls blocking out any additional noise that wasn’t needed.

And keeping in any additional noise that shouldn’t be heard.

They were inside. Both of them. Chan and Kwangho, positioned behind the microphone. Chan was wearing headphones, engrossed in reading whatever lyrics were sitting in his hands and Kwangho was right in his shadow, chest pressed up against the younger boy’s back.

He was saying something, pointing over Chan’s shoulder to one of the lines on the paper and the setting would have looked harmless. Unless you knew what Jeonghan knew. Unless you saw the way Kwangho’s hand was resting on Chan’s hip and how close he was leaning in.

Jeonghan had been in that exact position too many times without having any idea what it would eventually lead to.

That was not going to happen to Chan.

He dived for the door and ripped it open, ignoring the shocked yelps from its inhabitants as he lunged forwards and grabbed Chan, pulling the younger boy behind him as he retreated against the wall. 

His body was between Kwangho and his maknae but Kwangho was between them and the exit.

“Hyung?” Chan gasped out, finally overcoming his initial shock and taking a gentle hold of Jeonghan’s shoulders. “Hyung, what are you doing? Why are you here?”

Jeonghan didn’t respond. Of course, he didn’t. He couldn’t. He just stood there, staring at the surprise in Kwangho’s face while keeping a firm grip on Chan’s body to ensure the kid couldn’t escape from the protective shield his hyung had fashioned for him.

He met Kwangho’s eye and very slowly shook his head, portraying a crystal-clear message: you can’t have him.

“Hyung, you should be at home,” Chan continued, trying to side step Jeonghan’s body so he could get a better look at his hyung’s face but found himself restrained by hands that were quivering so violently they would have looked at home on a patient with Parkinson’s.

“Han?” Kwangho offered, his voice soft and innocent as he took a step forwards and Jeonghan a step back, bringing Chan with him. “Angel, you’re sick. Whatever you think is happening is not real, okay? Chan and I are just recording a song.”

No. No. No. That wasn’t true. That’s not what Kwangho was doing. His hands had been in places hands shouldn’t be without permission and although Chan hadn’t seen the danger that was lurking right behind him, Jeonghan had. Jeonghan saw it clear as day.

“I’m going to call Seungcheol, okay, Angel? I’m going to ask him to come get you so he can take care of you.”

He was lying. That wasn’t the reason. He was trying to get him out of the way so he could have Chan all for himself in this soundproof studio where, once the door was closed and locked, nobody would be able to hear that child scream for help.

Kwangho reached for his phone and Jeonghan took his chance, seizing Chan’s hand in a vice-like grip and tugging him towards the door. But Kwangho was faster. Kwangho had always and would always be so much faster.

He threw an arm across the doorway, effectively blocking his captives' escape, and Jeonghan felt fear curdling inside his gut because now he knew they weren’t getting out of this. Not without some kind of miracle or some kind of battle and Chan still didn’t believe how real this threat was.

“Jeonghan,” Kwangho said, and now there was a different edge to his voice. Anger. He was giving him a warning. “You’re not well enough to be out like this. You need to go home where the others can look after you.”

“Hyung’s right,” Chan whispered, still trapped behind Jeonghan’s body and floating in a world of confusion. “Jeonghan-hyung, you need …”

Jeonghan did what he had to do.

And it nearly killed him.

He threw himself forwards, fisting his hands in Kwangho’s jacket and sending them both tumbling out of the booth before crashing down onto the floor, Jeonghan on top of his abuser. 

Taking full advantage of the way Kwangho seemed to have been winded from the fall, he scrambled up, turned around and shoved Chan back into that glass box.

He pulled the door closed and locked it, securing an unbreakable barrier between his kid and the horrors that he knew were about to unfurl. 

The door only locked from the outside. This was the only way.

Chan’s expression changed from one of confusion to one of outrage as he pounded on the glass and wrestled with the handle that wasn’t going to give unless somebody twisted the key. His cries for release went unheard, the soundproofing doing its job to perfection.

Jeonghan had roughly two seconds to look at his little brother – his baby – before Kwangho’s hands were on his shoulders and he was being shoved forwards, slammed face-first into the door so that his skull exploded with pain.

“You want to play this game?” the monster whispered in his ear, one hand secured around the back of Jeonghan’s neck to ensure he couldn’t move his head from where it was smashed against the window. “Fine. We’ll play.”

Sausage fingers curled into the collar of his pyjama shirt and he was wrenched backwards, feet losing purchase as he stumbled and fell, throbbing head smacking on the ground behind him. 

The world was spinning but he managed to make out the pure terror on Chan’s face as he seemed to finally realise what was happening.

“Shall we give him a show, Angel?” Kwangho smirked as Jeonghan rolled onto his stomach and tried crawling his way to safety only to have a foot come down on the small of his back. “Shall we let him watch our little play time?”

Chan was safe. Inside that room. Chan was safe. It didn’t matter if he watched his hyung being violated because it wouldn’t be happening to him. Jeonghan could live with that. Jeonghan could maybe even die with that.

Hopefully Jeonghan would die with that.

He managed to raise his head and catch his maknae’s eye as Kwangho was ripping off his jacket, preparing himself for one hell of a performance. 

Chan was screaming, fists hammering against the door and tears flowing freely down his face as he tried to escape his glass prison to no avail.

If Jeonghan could speak, he would have told him to close his eyes. He would have told him not to watch what was about to happen but he couldn’t make a sound. 

Even with his newfound bravery and determination to destroy Kwangho forever, the metaphorical spell remained intact. 

“You know,” came that ghastly voice just seconds before a hand fisted in Jeonghan’s hair and his head was pulled back so violently that his neck felt like it might break, still lying on his stomach in front of the booth where Chan had a perfect view. 

“I thought I’d had enough of you. I thought I’d used you up and I was ready to move on. But, I’ve got to tell you, Angel, seeing you like this … I think I may have been mistaken.”

Jeonghan closed his eyes as his head was wrenched sideways to collide with the leg of a table again and again and again. 

His ears were ringing, he could barely breathe and yet Kwangho’s words had some way of reverberating around his head with perfect clarity.

“I think you have one more round in you, Angel. I’m willing to give it a go, to have one more special time together before I teach myself what it’s like to make love to a real dancer.”

Darkness crept into the corners of Jeonghan’s vision and the last thing he saw before it claimed him was Chan’s tear-stained face on the other side of that door, unable to do anything but watch as Kwangho unbuttoned his jeans.


	19. 제 18 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go after this. Thank you for everything!

Seungcheol had absolutely no idea what was happening.

One moment, he was watching in awe as Seokmin lifted the glass of water to Jeonghan’s lips, wondering how on earth the boy had managed to perform such a miracle when the rest of them had lost hope long ago, and the next, his best friend was stealing his car and screeching off in the direction of the studio.

Something was wrong. He knew that. But he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what that was as he and Joshua sprinted up the stairs towards the recording booth. 

It seemed the most logical destination considering Jeonghan had fled the second Seungkwan had mentioned why Chan wasn’t present at the breakfast table.

Jeonghan knew something that Seungcheol didn’t, and it was an unnerving sensation.

It had taken him and Joshua far too long to flag a taxi and get to the studio, their minds and their hearts on overdrive as they stayed in complete silence despite the excessive number of questions the both of them wanted to ask.

What if something truly awful had been going on in plain sight and neither of them had noticed? What if the answer to Jeonghan’s trauma had been staring them in the face this entire time? What if they were more at fault for what had happened to their friend than they’d originally thought?

All of those questions were answered the moment Seungcheol threw open the studio door and saw the scene that would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Chan was in the recording booth, his face blotchy and drenched in his own snot and spit as he screamed at the top of his lungs and pounded his fists against the door that must have been locked. His hands were already starting to blossom in purples and blues.

Jeonghan was lying on his stomach, still wearing his pyjama shirt and sweatpants, face turned towards the door so Seungcheol could see the bloody nose, the blackened eye and the multitude of additional bruises and abrasions that littered that unconscious face.

He saw the puddle of scarlet that was slowly seeping through the carpet, growing in diameter as it continued to spread. As Jeonghan continued to bleed from whatever wound was concealed underneath his hair.

And then there was Kwangho.

Seungcheol did not want to describe what Kwangho was doing, or what he was about to do since he hadn’t yet gotten close enough. 

Seungcheol just stood there in the doorway, his frozen muscles trying to process the impulses his brain was sending them in desperate screams.

Writers sometimes describe anger as “white hot”. It’s a metaphor, meaning that whoever is feeling that emotion is burning like a poker that had spent too long in the fire, and if they touch anything, it will blister and scab beneath their fingertips.

Seungcheol never quite understood metaphors. He never understood the “white hot” anger that he’d read about in so many books. Except for now. Now he understood it perfectly.

He was moving before he even realised what he was doing, mind on autopilot as his feet carried him forwards and his fist came up higher and higher and higher and then it was shooting out and making contact with Kwangho’s face.

There was a sickening thud of knuckles on a jaw and electric charges ricocheted up Seungcheol’s arm from the force of the blow, but he couldn’t feel the pain. He only felt the anger. The white hot anger that was only burning brighter with every second he thought about what Kwangho had been doing.

“I’m going to kill you!” he screamed at the hunched figure, seizing the man by the head and bringing his knee up so that it collided with this monster’s nose and knocked him backwards onto the floor. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

He was on top of him, straddling his waist, and raining punch after punch down on the face he had smiled with, laughed with, joked with. 

He struck every part of Kwangho he could reach: the arms that had hugged him and comforted him throughout this entire nightmare, the chest he had buried his face in as he cried for his best friend.

He had trusted Kwangho. He had let him into his house. He had defended him to the police. He had thanked him for taking care of his little brother. He had thanked him. And all this time, he’d been abusing Jeonghan.

He’d raped Jeonghan.

The person Seungcheol had called a friend had raped Jeonghan.

And he’d let him.

“SEUNGCHEOL!”

It was Joshua’s scream that finally brought Seungcheol back to the land of the living. It pierced through the veil of his anger and wrapped him in its coils, dragging him to the surface. Where he was needed. Desperately.

He stopped his assault, looking down at the bloodied pulp Kwangho had been reduced to beneath him, and he tumbled off the body with a choked cry of horror at what he’d done. Had he killed him? Was he dead? Was Seungcheol a murderer?

“Seungcheol …”

It didn’t matter. Not right now. Only one thing mattered right now.

“I’m here,” he gasped out, turning around and staggering towards the spot where Joshua was kneeling beside Jeonghan, hands hovering uselessly over the boy’s body as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. “Oh … Holy shit … Okay …”

Chan was still battling with the door and Seungcheol unlocked it, already forming the words, “are you okay?” on his lips, but Chan didn’t give him the time to ask. He shoved past his leader, choking on his own tears and threw himself on the ground beside his hyung.

“No … No … No …” he was muttering under his breath as he ever so gently rolled Jeonghan onto his back and then pulled him into his lap, cradling his limp body like a lifeline. “No … No … Why did you do that? No … Please … No …”

Seungcheol wanted to join the huddle on the floor, clamp Jeonghan and Chan and Joshua to his chest where he could protect them forever from the people they thought were friends but were really monsters. But he didn’t deserve to.

He had let this happen.

So he stayed away, far away, and called the ambulance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joshua had blood on his hands. It didn’t matter how many times he’d washed it off, he still had blood on his hands. Jeonghan’s blood. His best friend’s blood. The same blood that had been lathered over the side of his face and crusted in his eyelashes and matted in his hair. 

There had been so much and the paramedic had said that scalp wounds tended to bleed a lot and that it was probably a lot less serious than it looked, but Joshua couldn’t think about that when he was still seeing his best friend’s blood on his hands. 

He felt rigid. Stiff. Like concrete. Fused to the waiting room chair with his eyes staring blankly at the bare wall opposite and his arm hooked around Chan’s shoulders as the kid sobbed into his side. 

He hadn’t stopped sobbing. Not since they’d burst in and found … _that._

Just a few moments later and they would have been too late. Just a few moments later and Jeonghan would have been ripped apart yet again. Just a few moments later and they wouldn’t have been able to protect him from what Kwangho had been ready to do. 

Kwangho. 

How could they have been so blind? How could they have watched the two of them together and not seen the discomfort in Jeonghan’s posture and the terror in his eyes whenever that monster put his arms around him? 

How could they leave them alone together? How could they treat that man like a friend when he was abusing their brother as soon as they turned their backs? How could they ever forgive themselves for allowing this to happen? 

How could Joshua sit in that police interview and say with a smile on his face that Kwangho would never hurt Jeonghan? How could he do that? What kind of friend would do that? 

“Where is he?” 

He flinched, not expecting the sudden attack on his sensory system as Soonyoung practically threw himself into the waiting room with the others right behind him, each of them looking paler than paper and trembling, either with fear or fury. 

“Where is he?” Soonyoung repeated, his breathing clearly erratic, maybe even dangerously so. “Where is he? Is he alive?”

“Yes,” Joshua croaked when he finally found his voice, leaving Chan curled up and still sobbing in the chair as he got to his feet and prepared himself to address the collection of terrified faces in front of him. “He’s alive. Uh … Seungcheol’s getting an X-Ray for his hand and … Han …”

His throat was closing up. He couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was going to vomit. 

“His head was hurt. They’re doing a CT to determine just how bad it is but one of the doctors said it looks like he’s going to be okay.” A pause. “Physically, at least.”

There was silence and nobody was looking at anyone else. Nobody wanted to see how they should be reacting to this kind of news. 

Jeonghan was going to be okay and, for that, they were thanking the heavens, but there was something else. Something else that was taking that happiness and that relief and crushing it into dust. 

“Hyung …” Seungkwan whispered, appearing at Joshua’s elbow and tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. “Was it … Was it really Kwangho?” 

He wondered if it would be easier to lie to them. He wondered if it would be kinder because as soon as the truth left his lips, that would be it. They would never trust a single soul ever again. 

They would look at the friends they’d had all their lives and question everything about them. They would remember this moment for the rest of their existences. 

They would remember the person they’d called ‘hyung’ had faked a relationship with their big brother just so he could hide the way he was abusing and manipulating and blackmailing him, possibly for weeks.

But they deserved the truth. They deserved to know what that man had done. They deserved to know that it was okay to curse him and wish him nothing but pain for what he’d reduced Jeonghan to. 

“Yeah … It was Kwangho.” 

Silence. A long, long, long silence. And then Seungkwan spoke up again, his voice distant and his expression unreadable and his knees wavering as he swayed slightly on the spot. 

“It’s my fault.”

Joshua’s neck almost snapped at the speed with which he turned his head, one hand fastening itself around Seungkwan’s elbow to steady him before he could collapse and his lips forming shapeless questions. 

“It’s not your fault,” Hansol said from where he was sitting beside Chan, gently rubbing the kid’s back as he continued to weep quietly into his hands. “How could it be your fault?” 

“In the dance studio,” Seungkwan muttered, his eyes unfocused and his brows knitted together in the centre of his forehead. “In the dance studio when Jeonghan-hyung first … first kissed him. He was … He was talking to me. He … I can’t even remember what he said but his hands … his hands were on my waist and I thought he was just … being friendly but then Jeonghan-hyung … He was threatening him. He was threatening Jeonghan-hyung using me and I didn’t even realise!”

And maybe it would have escalated. Maybe Seungkwan would have spiralled into a full-blown panic attack and sunk to his knees as somebody ran to find him a paper bag to breathe into, but he didn’t. 

Because, as though it was scripted, Kwangho chose that moment to walk through the lobby. 

His face was swollen and bruised, his nose wonky and his eye blackened, and Joshua gained some sick sense of satisfaction from knowing that it must hurt. That Seungcheol hadn’t mutilated his hands for nothing. 

There were officers on either side of him, frog-marching his burly frame towards the door, but there were no cuffs. There was no sign that he was being arrested. There was none of that ‘police brutality’ that should only exist for these exact moments and dealing with these exact people. 

And, for somebody, that wasn’t good enough. 

“WONWOO!”

Jihoon’s shout came too late for Joshua to prevent what happened next. All he knew was that, one minute, he was staring at Seungkwan with his heart breaking into a billion tiny pieces and the next, Wonwoo had gone feral. 

He was one of the quietest, gentlest, most introverted out of all of them and yet, in that moment when he was storming across the hospital lobby, gaining speed and momentum with every step, Joshua barely even recognised him. 

“LOOK AT ME, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”

Kwangho turned towards the source of the roar just in time for his face to register fear before Wonwoo’s fist was in his throat. 

Joshua started forwards, mind on overdrive as he saw Kwangho’s eyes widening to the size of saucers and his hands leaping up to clutch at his bruised windpipe, but Wonwoo had turned into something else. 

He was no longer Jeon Wonwoo. He wasn’t even human. He probably had no control over his actions. He was just a boy whose best friend had been abused - sexually, physically and emotionally - by the man in front of him.

“FEEL GOOD, DID IT?” he screamed, shoving one of the police officers away from him so he could grab a fistful of Kwangho’s hair and hold him still as he landed another punch in his gut.

“DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL POWERFUL? HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU THREATEN HIM? HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU TELL HIM HE HAD TO COMPLY WITH YOUR SICK FANTASIES OR ELSE IT WOULD BE ONE OF US? HOW MANY TIMES DID HE BEG YOU TO STOP AND HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU HIT HIM UNTIL HE WAS TOO WEAK TO DEFEND HIMSELF?”

Joshua could only watch. He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he should do something. Stop this. Prevent Wonwoo from being labelled as a murderer. But his feet were glued to the spot and, from the way nobody was rushing past him, so were everybody else’s. 

Wonwoo kept screaming, kept fighting, kept trying to rip Kwangho’s innards out through his mouth until the police officers tackled him to the ground. It took both of them, the combined strength of two grown men to pin him down.

Kwangho was writhing on the floor, clutching at his abdomen and his throat, and coughing up what looked like blood, and Joshua was happy. 

He was guilt-stricken. He was terrified. He was on the verge of tears. But he was happy even though Wonwoo was being handcuffed and Seungcheol’s fingers were broken.

He was happy that they’d done something for Jeonghan. He was happy that they’d ensured his abuser hadn’t gone completely unpunished. 


	20. 제 19 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last hurrah! Here we go ...

When Jeonghan came to, he instantly recognised the familiar sensation of an oxygen mask over his face and some kind of dressing plastered to his skin, stuck there with the rough-textured tape he hated to feel against his face.

There were needles in his arms and blankets layered on top of him and a pillow beneath his head which felt airy and foggy all at the same time.

Something was wrapped around it, compressing his skull and causing him to let out a soft groan from behind the mask as he tried to reach up and relieve the pressure.

“Han?”

Fingers closed around his wrist and he flinched, trying to pull away and sending a jarring sensation shooting all the way up to his elbow from the involuntary movement his body wasn’t prepared to perform.

He tried to open his eyes but everything was too bright and he cried out again.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Han. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, Han. Shh. I’m sorry.”

The grip retracted itself immediately, and Jeonghan felt his eyebrows furrowing as confusion clouded his already-misty mind. He’d been positive that hand had belonged to Kwangho, but Kwangho would never apologise like that and the voice was different. It sounded tearful.

He cracked his eyelids apart for a second attempt at vision and the world came back to him in one fell swoop, crashing down on top of his chest and splintering his ribs beneath its weight as he finally realised where he was and remembered why.

Chan. He had to find Chan. It didn’t matter that Kwangho had assaulted him while he was unconscious because he needed to know that Chan was safe. That the beast who haunted his nightmares hadn’t moved on to his baby brother after he’d finished up with him.

“Han? It’s me. Calm down, Han. Please calm down. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Everyone’s safe and you’re safe and Kwangho is gone. I promise. Kwangho is gone.”

Gone. Just like that? He couldn’t be. It was a lie. A trick. But he was almost positive that voice belonged to Seungcheol and Seungcheol would never trick him. Would never willingly put him in danger.

He managed to turn his head even though his neck was painfully stiff and his movements were slow and sluggish, and the second Seungcheol’s anxious face came into view, he felt his eyes pricking with tears.

“He’s gone,” his leader told him, tentatively reaching out and Jeonghan seized his hand as soon as it was close enough. “I promise you, Han. He’s gone. The police have him and they’re not letting him go anytime soon. He will never touch you again.”

So they’d finally worked it out. They finally knew how weak he’d been, staying silent every time Kwangho groped him in front of them and letting them believe it was just the wild actions of a new couple.

“And Chan is safe,” Seungcheol clarified, as though he could read Jeonghan’s mind. “Nothing happened to him. He’s absolutely fine because you saved him.”

Jeonghan just cried. He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t process so much information all in one: Kwangho was gone, Chan was safe, and Seungcheol knew everything. Tears seemed to be the only appropriate response.

He gazed up at his only older brother, vision slightly blurred from the salted pearls gently oozing from between his eyelids, and tried to ask him without words. Tried to convey the question he needed to ask without moving his lips.

“We got there first,” Seungcheol whispered, and Jeonghan realised for the first time that his hyung was crying too. “He didn’t have time to hurt you again. We stopped him, Han. I promise. He didn’t hurt you and he never will.”

But he had. He already had. Twice. Nothing and no one was ever going to take that away and Jeonghan had to live with the memories for the rest of his existence on this earth, experiencing the trauma over and over again, both when he was awake and when he was asleep.

“Han … Han, can I ask you something?”

He might as well. It wasn’t like Jeonghan had any secrets left anyway. Everything was out in the open, exposed to all and it was never coming back. The media would have their claws in sooner or later and at some point, he was going to have to face the others.

“When Kwan … Kwangho came to the house the other week and I was asleep downstairs … Did he … Did he?”

Jeonghan nodded wordlessly, shoulders trembling with the effort of choking up all those sobs, and now Seungcheol was crying just as hard as he was, clinging to his best friend’s hand and pitching forwards so he could rest his forehead on the bed beside him.

“I’m so sorry …” he cried. “I’m so sorry, Han … I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

It wasn’t his fault. Jeonghan desperately wanted to tell him that but all he could manage to do was lift his free hand and reach over his body so he could rest it on top of Seungcheol’s hair, stroking gently.

He had no idea how long it took for the leader to come round, raising his head from the mattress to display salted powderpuff cheeks and looked Jeonghan straight in the eye as his lips trembled with the effort of formulating a few more words. One last question.

“Did he tell you not to speak?”

_Not a word._

_Not a word._

_Not a word._

Jeonghan gave him the answer with his eyes, and Seungcheol’s immediate reaction was to take both his best friend’s hands in his own and squeeze as tight as he could without hurting the fragile digits.

“You are safe,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “No one is ever going to hurt you like that again and if you aren’t ready to talk then that’s okay. But I need you to know that you can, alright? You can say whatever you want whenever you want and no one is going to punish you for it. You don’t need to be afraid anymore, Han.”

It would take the longest of times before Jeonghan started to truly believe that. The road to recovery was going to be years in the making but as a wise man once said, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.

“I love you, Han,” Seungcheol whispered. “I love you so much.”

Jeonghan wished he could say the same. He really wished. But he couldn’t.

\--------------------

Wonwoo spent two nights in a jail cell but was ultimately released once Kwangho’s lawyer convinced him that dropping the assault charges would make his own case look a lot better. 

Seungcheol’s hand was confined to an orthopaedic cast for a month, dislocated thumb splinted and broken fingers taped together, but his attack on his best friend’s abuser had been written off as self defence.

And Jeonghan was discharged from the hospital a week following his admission, still silent and withdrawn and bruised beyond belief, his scalp stitched together just above his left ear and promising a wickedly prominent scar even if he grew his hair out.

He gave a written statement to the police and Chan, Joshua and Seungcheol all testified to what they’d witnessed but no trial could go ahead if the only victim was refusing to speak a word. 

And, as a result, Kwangho walked free. 

It was frustrating, infuriating and terrifying to think that Jeonghan’s rapist was still out there but getting the boy to eat three meals a day was already a difficult battle they fought on a daily basis and, therefore, convincing him to face the man who had abused and manipulated him for months on end was most definitely not their number one priority. 

Seungcheol had initially been confused, wondering how Jeonghan could even consider not taking the monster to court so he could be put away for the rest of his life, but when days stretched into weeks and his friend still wouldn’t utter a word, he finally understood. 

The fear was still there and although Jeonghan was going on walks with them and playing games with them and at least attempting to eat meals with them, he was still the same person who had spent almost a month in a state of terror so severe it had rendered him catatonic.

It was going to take a long, long time to come back from that. 

“I can’t do it!” Chan wailed for the umpteenth time that afternoon, throwing his pencil down on the garden table and slumping back in his chair with a sulky pout puffing up his lips. “It just looks like a stick of mouldy candyfloss!”

Seungcheol glanced up from the book he was reading and couldn’t contain his chuckle of amusement at the sight of the ‘tree’ Chan had been trying to draw, using the potted plant at the edge of the patio as misled inspiration. 

“Great,” the kid huffed grumpily. “Now even you’re laughing at me. I’ve reached a new low.”

Chan hated art. It was one of the very few things he couldn’t do on the first try and, therefore, he had officially renounced anything to do with it. The only reason that had changed was because Jeonghan suddenly loved it, and Chan was too terrified to leave his side. 

Seungcheol understood the sentiment. He himself was wracked with anxiety every time his friend was out of his sight and he hadn’t been the one locked in a recording studio, forced to watch, completely helpless, as his hyung was almost assaulted for trying to protect him. 

Chan had been offered counselling but he’d refused, stating resolutely that being with his big brother was all the therapy he needed. And who was Seungcheol to argue with that? 

Drawing was something the trauma specialist had suggested and although Jeonghan still wouldn’t speak, it was clear to anybody and everybody that when he was sketching random objects in his notebook, he was a billion times calmer than when he wasn’t.

“Han, put him out of his misery, will you?”

Jeonghan raised his head, the freshly blackened hair he’d dyed immediately upon his discharge from the hospital tumbling in front of his eyes and hiding his face from the world as he leaned over to scribble something beneath Chan’s clumsy creation. 

They’d all tried various different strategies to coax him to cut it or tie it back but he refused every time. It was his coping strategy. His shield. His last layer of protection that allowed him to conceal his vulnerability from the many people he’d been forced to speak to over the past few weeks.

He retracted his pencil and returned to his own book, leaving the fine calligraphy letters spelling out a beautiful and heartfelt caption beneath Chan’s shaded blob of grey markings.

_‘A stick of mouldy candyfloss’ by Lee Chan._

His head was bowed, eyes downcast, but Seungcheol could still see the traces of happiness through the inky strands of his fringe as the ghost of a smile played over his lips at the sound of Chan’s laugh.

It was a gorgeous sight. Maybe one day, more people would be allowed to see it. 

Jeonghan’s instincts and reaction times were permanently working at double the speed and accuracy so, as soon as his wounded mind sensed Seungcheol’s gaze burning into him from across the table, his head shot up like a meerkat’s, searching for danger. 

“Just me,” Seungcheol assured him softly. “Sorry.” 

The smile had disappeared and, for that, Seungcheol was internally kicking himself, but Jeonghan simply gave a careful nod and resumed his sketching. It was an improvement. A week ago, he would have remained alert and unsettled for several more minutes. 

The sliding door was very carefully pulled aside and Joshua emerged onto the patio, footsteps and movements deliberately softened and slow so as not to trigger the abuse victim among them. 

“Seokmin’s putting a film on. You can come join us if you want.”

Everything was a choice, an open question, an option that could instantly be refused without fear of judgement, blame, retribution or punishment. That was how they lived now. By choice. 

“Chan, come help me make the popcorn.”

Joshua disappeared back into the house, his hand lingering on Seungcheol’s shoulder a little longer than normal and residing as a reminder to stay at the table so Jeonghan wouldn’t feel guilty if he didn’t want to go inside. 

Chan gave a reluctant hum but followed his hyung without protest, knowing that arguing or refusing would only stress Jeonghan out, and Seungcheol returned his attention to his book.

But the precautions seemed to be steadily decreasing in necessity as the boy officially labelled as selectively mute began to carefully and meticulously pack up his pencils in a colour-coded order. 

Another thing he needed: order. 

Seungcheol stayed where he was, expecting Jeonghan to immediately duck back into the building to join the others, but he didn’t. Instead, he pushed his open notebook across the table with his eyes still resolutely fixed on the hands that were trembling with anxiety. 

“You want me to look?” Seungcheol asked tentatively, not even attempting to touch the offering until he’d received Jeonghan’s tiny nod of nervous confirmation. “Okay.” 

He pulled the pad of sketching paper towards him, marvelling at the skill and technicality with which his dongsaeng had learned to draw until he truly realised what he was seeing before him.

It was a tabby kitten, its flyaway fur and bushy tail perfectly accented by individual flicks of a pencil nub and both tiny paws looped around a rabbit with a fluffy cotton tail and big heavy ears.

Both the animals had their eyes closed as they leaned into each other, seeming to be basking in a state of pure bliss, and Seungcheol felt his throat start to clog as his fingers brushed over the shaky message scrawled in tiny letters at the bottom. 

_‘Thank you for protecting me. I love you, too.’_

“Han …” Seungcheol choked, glancing up from the book only to find that Jeonghan had fled to the living room before he could be forced to initiate any kind of emotional interaction.

Closing the book and tucking it under his arm, Seungcheol furiously blinked back the tears, wiped his face with the hem of his shirt and then stepped through the sliding doors to where everybody was scattered over the furniture. 

He opened his mouth, preparing to ask what movie they were going to watch, but something stopped him. Something so horrible and so liberating and so wonderful that it knocked the breath right out of him. 

The news was on, captions scrolling along the bottom of the screen as a middle-aged man in an overly smart suit read from the cue cards set up behind the camera. And beside his head was a photograph.

A photograph of Kwangho.

“...the body that was pulled from the Han River on the morning of Sunday 4th has been officially identified as that of Park Kwangho, a former PLEDIS Entertainment employee who was fired from his position last month after allegations of abuse surfaced among his …”

“Turn it off!” Seungcheol shouted frantically, starting forwards with his hands blindly searching for the remote. “Turn it off now!”

Jeonghan couldn’t see this. It was too much. He wasn’t ready. He was too fragile. His mind just wasn’t strong enough to process the facts it was being bombarded with. The facts which implied that Kwangho had killed himself. 

The DVD player finally switched on, cutting the news report from the screen and replacing it with a blank blue canvas as the machine waited for a reflective disc to be inserted into its mechanics. 

And then there was silence. 

“Han …” Seungcheol whispered, watching Jeonghan’s expression for any sign of a breakdown. “Han … Do you want to go somewhere quiet? Or … do you want me to call your specialist?”

Jeonghan didn’t move. He was just standing there, blank as a slate, staring at the TV screen as though his entire brain had just completely shut down in the wake of such an earth-shattering shock. 

His abuser was dead. Gone. He wasn’t coming back. And Seungcheol didn’t know how the boy was supposed to feel about that. 

He was safe now. That monster had left the Earth. Forever. Never again would Jeonghan have to look upon that face or risk running into those eyes when he walked through the park. Never again would he have to live in fear of those intrusive hands waiting just around the corner.

“Seokmin, what film are we watching?” Joshua asked, attempting to draw attention away from the situation. “Didn’t you say it was between ‘Extreme Job’ and ‘Parasite’?”

“Yeah,” Seokmin croaked, instantly busying himself with the DVD boxes as everybody tried their hardest not to look at Jeonghan. “I haven’t seen ‘Parasite’ yet but everyone else wants the other one.”

He still wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. Wasn’t really blinking either and Seungcheol was just wondering whether he should step forwards and get ready to catch him if he fell when there was finally life behind those eyes that had remained deadened for months.

“Can we watch ‘Parasite’?”

His voice was so hoarse, so raw and cracked and broken from lack of use, but it was singularly the most astounding sound that Seungcheol had ever heard. 

Every single head snapped towards him, movements frozen in stunned disbelief, but Jeonghan ignored each and every one of them as he circled around the back of the sofa and carefully sank onto the cushions, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin on top.

“Yeah …” Seokmin whispered in awe. “We can watch ‘Parasite’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, I've ended up with way too many stories so I'm going to pause here and try to catch up with whatever the hell I'm doing. Thank you for reading, I hope everybody stays healthy and I promise I'll see you soon!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos really help with my motivation and confidence so if you have a spare minute, let me know what you think! Have a great day :)


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